


Together We Sang

by PitViperOfDoom



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Leitner Books (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Mary Keay's A+ Parenting, Trans Martin Blackwood, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29634210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitViperOfDoom/pseuds/PitViperOfDoom
Summary: Gerard meets an invisible child.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay
Comments: 56
Kudos: 198
Collections: TMA Gerry Week 2021





	1. Trust/Linger

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Ready Now" by dodie.
> 
> This is an idea that's been sitting on the backburner for a while because I was never sure how to make it a full cohesive story without it being massive. Then Gerry Week came along, and I realized I could tell it in prompts.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: child abuse and neglect, implied/suggested transphobia, canon-typical Lonely, descriptions of self-harm.

There was something in the kitchen, and Gerard could neither see nor hear it.

This was nothing new. It was a fact of life, actually. Things passed through the Keay household from time to time, and Gerard just had to deal with that. If he was lucky, they came and went in a whisper, too hungry for other things to pay him much mind. If he wasn’t, they stayed long enough to lap from him, and the nightmares lingered even after they moved on.

If he was very unlucky, they came back. The persistent ones, Mum learned to welcome.

The thing in the kitchen seemed like a whisper at first—quiet, almost unobtrusive in the way it drifted through the empty space like a ghost. It brought with it the cold and the smell of rain, rippling Gerard’s skin with goosebumps whenever he got too close. The cold leaked through jumpers and jackets and blankets, leaving reddened stinging skin that itched even after he’d fled back to his room, but besides that it kept its looming silence and bitter bite to the kitchen. By morning it had left, and Gerard could breathe again.

And then it came back.

Coming back could mean a lot of things, in Gerard’s world. Usually it meant it was still hungry.

He told Mum about it on the second day—she would get rid of it or find it useful, and either way it would become her problem, not his—and felt sick at the excitement on her face when she rushed to look. By the time she reached the kitchen, it was gone again. Mum accepted his insistence that it had been there, it really had—but he knew better. Mum didn’t like being made a fool of.

And so, when the thing came back a third time, Gerard kept silent.

What could he say, when there would be hell to pay if he told Mum and she came running to find the kitchen empty again? What could he do, when there was nowhere else to turn?

He ate less, on the days it was there. Mum didn’t like it when he hoarded food, so he went hungry while he hid in his room, chewing gum from a pack he’d lifted from a corner store to stave off the pangs. Mum went to and from the kitchen, but that didn’t mean much. Mum knew everything about her world and the creatures in it, and she was too clever for any of it to take her. If Gerard tried it, then whatever was lurking in the kitchen and reeking of the Lonely would pull him in. He was sure of it.

And there would be no one to pull him out. Mum had no patience for fools who let themselves get eaten. That was what happened to his father—he was a fool and dead, and if Gerard didn’t mind his lessons, then he would share the same fate.

A fortnight passed before Gerard learned anything new. It started with bread; one evening after the whisper had left the kitchen, he pulled out the bagged loaf to find that a corner had been torn from the topmost slice. The following day, the apple half that he’d been saving vanished. The day after that, more bread and a few slices of cheese went missing as well.

It warranted an experiment. The next time the kitchen went cold, Gerard braved a brush with the Lonely to fix himself a small lunch. He ate half a peanut butter sandwich, then wandered off to do something else. When he returned, only a quarter of it remained.

It couldn’t be that simple, could it? The Dread Powers fed on fear, not scraps of food. That was what Mum said, anyway, and Mum knew more about this than he did. But… maybe she was right the rest, then. She lived and breathed surrounded by the Powers and their servants. Maybe Gerard could live with this.

* * *

Mum kept chocolates in her study. It was almost funny, if you thought about it. She always said she had no time for frivolities and neither should Gerard, but she kept a box in her study that hid chocolate truffles wrapped in colorful foil, just for herself. Gerard wasn’t allowed to touch them, and it might have occurred to him to be upset about that if he could count on eating on the best of days.

As it was, Gerard hadn’t thought about Mum’s chocolates at all, until she came storming into the kitchen one day and slapped him halfway across the room.

She had the box in her hands, open and still full of foil-wrapped chocolate. “Gerard,” she said mildly, as if she hadn’t just cracked him across the face. “What have you to say for yourself?”

“I-I didn’t—”

“I count them, Gerard.” It was best not to argue with her, when her voice went hard like that. It never ended well. Mum didn’t have much patience for arguments; she cared less about winning them than she did about ending them.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, one hand on his numb cheek. His ears were still ringing.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry,” she told him. “Just don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

That night, as he stood over the sink, toothbrush in hand, and stared mutely at the spreading bruise on his face, he realized with a jolt that he could see his breath.

This would be how it got him, he supposed. Mum didn’t hit him much anymore, not since he learned to stop provoking her. But she did today, and if there was ever a time for the Forsaken to swallow him, it would be now. It was hard to think about what could anchor him to the world when he barely wanted to be in it.

The cold wrapped around him from behind, and his hands shook so violently that the toothbrush slipped from his fingers and clattered to the counter. Mist spread over the mirror, turning his pale reflection to a blur.

As he watched, thin little tracks cut through the condensation, as if drawn by invisible fingers. Slowly, haltingly, they formed into words.

 _I’_ _M SORRY_ _,_ the invisible finger wrote.

He gasped before he could stop himself, and in an instant the cold left him.

Gerard crept out into the hallway, just to be sure. Mum’s study was ajar, and when he cautiously edged his way close enough to see inside, he saw her sitting at her desk, studying one of her books again.

Still here, then. It hadn’t taken him.

When he returned to the mirror, the mist was beginning to condense into droplets, but the words were still visible. On a whim, he lifted his hand to the mirror, and found that his own fingertip fit perfectly within the lines.

* * *

In spite of everything, the whisper was a lot like everything else his mother’s work brought home; after a while, Gerry just learned to live with it.

The little thefts continued, less frequently, and never again as ambitious as Mum’s sweets. It stuck to scraps from the fridge, little snacks that Gerard let out while his back was turned, and on one occasion, a packet of tissues he’d forgotten was in his pocket. It was mostly food, a little at a time, never anything that Mum would miss.

And that was odd, wasn’t it? The last time it took something Mum cared about, she’d hit him, and Gerard had been vulnerable. Wasn’t that what it wanted? If Mum was right about the Powers, then it should have been. It should have eaten him then and there, with Mum none the wiser.

Instead it wrote an apology on the bathroom mirror and never did it again.

“What do you _want?_ ” he demanded when it finally got to be too much. Instead of an answer, all he got was a breath of frigid air before the empty kitchen gradually warmed again.

He should have left it at that. He should have been relieved—finally, a monster that didn’t want to claim him for its own, that didn’t smile with bloody teeth as Mum welcomed it like a house guest. He should have kept an eye from afar and left it to its lurking.

And he might have, if it weren’t for the reminder left on the bathroom mirror.

Sometimes, on a strange whim that he could never explain, Gerard would close the door, climb up onto the counter, and breath on the same spot. And every time the words would reappear, a clumsy apology written in fingerprints smeared over the glass, as thin as his own.

A short walk away from the shop was a corner store, a cramped and dingy little place that stank of cigarettes. The people behind the counter still tolerated his presence, some of them eyeing him from afar but never stopping him. Mum barely ever noticed when he left the house, so one day he slipped out with a pocket full of loose change scavenged from around the house. He came back a short while later with a small packet of chocolate digestives, which he stowed beneath his mattress before settling down to wait.

That night, when the whisper came back to the kitchen, Gerard was ready for it. He opened the packet, placed it on the counter, and stepped back.

For a moment, nothing happened. The kitchen remained cold, but his offering sat untouched. Gerard considered the possibility that he would have to turn around to let it take them, before setting his face to a stubborn scowl and continuing to watch. In a moment of wild boldness, he stepped closer to the whisper just to nudge the packet toward it.

After a moment, the packet stirred on its own. A biscuit was pulled free, and sat floating in midair for a few moments before slowly disappearing to the sound of crunching.

“Is that all you want?” Gerard asked. “Food?”

The crunching stopped. The cold air stirred, but nothing else happened.

“Can you speak?” Gerard asked. Nothing. “Can you knock on things, then?”

After a moment, a soft knock against the pantry door answered him. It sounded like it came from low to the ground, as low as Gerard would reach, if he were doing the knocking.

“One for yes, two for no?”

_Knock._

“Is food all you want?”

 _Knock._ A pause. Then, almost timidly, two more knocks followed.

Gerard stepped back. If it wanted more than food, then it might want fear, as well. He didn’t want to wander the Forsaken forever.

_But if it wanted to do that to him, then why hadn’t it yet?_

“What _are_ you?” he demanded, even though there was no way for the whisper to answer him.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs sent him into action even quicker than his heart could drop. Without a word, Gerard grabbed the biscuit packet off the counter and shoved it under his jacket, careful not to rustle the plastic.

The kitchen air was already starting to warm again by the time he fled back to his bedroom and the comforting illusion of safety.

* * *

The whisper moved from the kitchen into his bedroom.

Not permanently. Not even very often. But Gerard felt it there from time to time, hovering in the far corner as if watching him. It never touched him, never even came near, and it was never there when he went to sleep or woke up. Not to say it couldn’t have crept in while he slept. He was a light sleeper, but the Forsaken never made a sound. For all he knew, it hovered over him and watched as he twitched in his nightmares.

( _If it wanted him, why hadn’t it taken him yet?_ )

Mum never said anything about it. Gerard was beginning to think, against all odds, that she might not know it was there at all. If she woke up one morning to find him already swallowed whole, she might never know what had happened.

( _If it wanted him, why hadn’t it taken him yet?_ )

The first time Gerard left part of his meal uneaten, he wondered, in the back of his mind, what she would say if she did know. Would she call him an idiot for feeding it on a whim? Would she indulge him? Or would her hands settle on him again as she set another book in front of him, nails digging in as she taught him how to feed it the _right_ way?

She needn’t have worried, not when his leftovers vanished from the plate when his back was turned.

The cold lingered in his bedroom that night, long after Mum had gone to bed. Gerard sat in the farthest corner, huddled and small and certain that he’d doomed himself. Hadn’t Mum told him that the Powers only ever asked for more?

“Hope that was better than bread crusts and apple cores,” he muttered darkly.

For a moment, all he heard was silence, and all he felt was the chilly drafts from across the room. The darkness seemed to shift, curling like mist in a breeze.

Then—

“ _Thank you._ ”

The whisper barely reached his ears. If the room hadn’t been utterly silent, it never would have made it.

Gerard jerked his head up, shocked. With a muffled gasp, the invisible thing fled from his room and left him alone once more.

* * *

“ _Can you hear me?_ ”

He could, and that was the whole problem. It was bad enough when the shred of Lonely had lingered silently in corners. He could pretend it was harmless, then. But now—

Now it spoke to him. Now it _called_ to him. And that meant he couldn’t pretend anymore.

His first instinct was to panic. To pull back and ignore it, to keep his head down and his food to himself. But the whisper—a voice, now—would not be ignored. Scraps began to vanish again, and in spite of the new danger, Gerard couldn’t escape the pit in his stomach whenever he saw what it stole: bread crusts and scrapings, little things that his mother wouldn’t miss.

(Mum hit him _once_ , and it never stole anything big again—)

“ _I know I’m talking. I can hear me. Can’t you hear me, too?_ ”

He covered his ears. Maybe if he didn’t listen, he could buy more time before it finally pulled him in. It was what he did best: keeping his head down and his mouth shut, and staying alive. He thought it made him clever. He thought it made him strong, or at least as close to it as he could get.

But he wasn’t strong at all.

“ _Please. Please answer me?_ ” The whispers turned to sobs, late at night while he lay in bed with his head beneath the blankets and feigned sleep.

“ _I don’t want to lose it again, I just got it back._ ”

“ _Please._ ”

“ _Please_ _just tell me I’m still real._ ”

He sat up.

His room was dark, but he could just barely see his breath in the air. His blanket fell back, and the chill crept beneath his skin almost instantly. In the quiet that followed, all he could hear were his own shuddering breaths.

“What do you want?” he asked, as his breath curled from his lips and joined the other wisps of fog. He waited, as still as he could be when his body wanted to shiver.

“ _I want to go home,_ ” the voice answered. “ _I want my mum to see me again._ ”

Later, Gerard would look back and wonder how he hadn’t realized how young the voice was. Whoever was talking couldn’t have been much older than him.

He’d never met anyone his own age before.

Maybe it was stupid. If it was a trap, then he was falling for it. Mum would smack him across the room again if she ever found out. But Mum was asleep right now, and Gerard reveled in any secret he could keep from her.

He learned forward, gathering the blankets around himself, for all the good they did.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

A quiet sniffle reached his ears, and that was what decided it, in the end. Monsters didn’t make sounds like that.

“ _I don’t remember,_ ” the child caught in the Lonely replied. “ _I lost it in the fog._ ”

* * *

He could kick himself, honestly. For weeks he’d been creeping around in his own house, going hungry just to avoid the kitchen, trying not to invite the cold in by thinking about it—and he could have avoided all of it if he’d just _talked_ to it.

( _Him_ , not it. That was a boy in the fog; he might not remember his name, but he did know that much, and he got very upset if Gerry implied he was anything but.)

Because it was all very simple, in the end. Just one question would have explained everything.

“ _It happened after I read the book,_ ” the boy told him, and Gerard’s heart sank so deep in his chest that he wasn’t sure it would rise again. “ _It was at the library. When I got home, I started to disappear, just like it said._ ”

Gerard knew he should be excited. Mum _loved_ Leitners. The only times he ever saw her smile—a real smile, not the oily things she put on when she met with monsters—was when she had a brand-new Leitner in her hands. Sometimes he dreamed about going out and finding them when he was older. Maybe then she’d smile like that for him, too.

But he didn’t feel excited. All he felt was scared.

“Can I see it?” he asked, holding his hand out.

The cold air stirred. “ _No… no, I can’t let go of it._ ”

“Why not?”

“ _I put it down once, and I got lost. As long as I’m holding it, I can see where I am._ ”

He could just imagine what his mum would say about that: a Leitner of the Forsaken, that cast its victim in the Lonely while also serving as their only lifeline. _What a wonderful trap._

Gerard shuddered, and it wasn’t just from the cold.

“ _I can tell you about it,_ ” the boy offered. “ _If you want?_ ”

He thought back through his mother’s lessons. Could a Leitner trap him if he only learned about it? No, it probably couldn’t—Mum said the Archivist took stories for the Beholding, and it’d be a waste of Archivists if they disappeared or got eaten every time they heard one about a Leitner.

“Sure,” he said at last. He’d come this far already, hadn’t he? “Tell me.”

“ _It was for a series I like,_ ” the boy began. “ _Or, it was supposed to be. I don’t think this is the way the story was supposed to go._ ”

“It was a story?”

“ _There was a little girl,_ ” it came out as a whisper. “ _And she was—she wasn’t happy. Because she was living with someone who didn’t love her. Only it wasn’t—her aunt didn’t hurt her, she didn’t—_ ” he sniffled. “ _She didn’t shout or hit her—I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to make her do that, I promise._ ”

Confused, it took Gerard a moment to realize that the Lonely child was talking to him, not recounting the story. “Do what?”

“ _Your mum, when she…_ ”

Without warning, an ice-cold fingertip brushed against his face. Gerard threw himself backward, crashing into wall with a thud that made his ears ring.

“Don’t _touch_ me!”

“ _I’m sorry!_ ” The voice sounded panicked. “ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry—_ ”

It took a minute for Gerard to get his breath back. His hand was pressed to his face where the Lonely child touched him—where Mum hit him, for the chocolate he didn’t steal—

“It’s fine,” he snapped, harsher than he meant to. He tried again. “It’s fine. You surprised me. That’s all.”

“ _I’m sorry._ ”

“Stop saying that.”

“ _I’m—okay._ ”

“Just—just keep going.” Gerard forced himself to put his hand down. “About the book. The girl and her aunt.”

“ _Okay. Um._ ” The child sniffled quietly. “ _Her aunt didn’t—didn’t shout or hit her, she just… ignored her. And pretended she wasn’t there. Even when the girl screamed and cried. Even when she broke things. Even—even when she cut herself and bled and bled, all over the walls and the rug and—_ ” He faltered again. “ _No matter what, her aunt pretended she wasn’t there. So she started to disappear. First her fingers and hands. And then her arms, and legs, and bodies, and finally her face and all the rest of her. And her aunt, she started to change too—she’d hear her scream, or see her break things, and she’d get scared. Not because she was scared of the girl—she was scared because she was hearing things and seeing things at all. Like she’d forgotten she had a niece. Until finally she stopped seeing the broken things. Even when the girl threw them at her. Even when she picked up the shards of glass and—and—_ ”

The boy stopped, gasping with shaking sobs. “ _So she got scared, and she ran out to find help, but nobody else could see her, either. Or hear her. Or feel her. And she looked and looked for someone who would, but she didn’t find anyone and finally she lost her voice and her name and everything else and she faded away and no one even knew there was supposed to be a little girl at all_ —”

“O-okay. Okay, _okay._ ” Gerard’s voice cracked as it rang out. The panicked babble died down to breathless sobbing. “I think I get it.”

“ _I want to go home,_ ” the Lonely child wept. “ _I don’t want to disappear._ ”

“Bit late for that,” Gerard remarked, and winced when it only made him cry harder. He shook his head, waiting for the kid to calm down. “Have you tried ripping up the book? Destroying it? Setting it on fire?”

“ _N-no,_ ” he mumbled. “ _Not s’posed to play with matches. And—and I if I lose the book, I’ll lose all of me, too._ ”

“Right, fine.” His thoughts were already turning, tumbling end over end in his head. This house wasn’t a good place for a kid like this, all soft and weepy and a step away from normal. He couldn’t live on scraps and bread crusts, and Gerard couldn’t live on half-meals to feed him.

He had to leave, and that meant he had to get out of the Lonely.

“Is there…?” Gerard’s voice trailed off, and he wondered how to ask this. The way Mum explained it never made much sense to him. She talked about anchors, but she never explained what they _meant,_ not in a way he could grasp. Then again… “Do you have parents?”

“ _I have a mum. And a dad, I think. But he’s gone—he left._ ”

“Do you think about your mum a lot?”

“ _Yes. All the time. I want to go home._ ”

Gerard didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t, not with the fear that suddenly gripped him by the throat.

Mum always said that if the Lonely tried to take him, he should think of her, because she was the only reason he was alive, and that made her an anchor. He was never really sure what that meant, but she was sure of it, and she knew more about these things than he did. But if it hadn’t worked for this other child…

This house had always felt safe the way a rabbit’s burrow might feel safe—somewhere warm and dark, hidden from the hungry things with gleaming teeth that lurked just beyond. And it felt safe because Mum was there, and as long as Mum was the one hurting and terrifying him, nothing else was.

For the first time, Gerard felt cold doubt setting in, as a little bit of that double-edged safety was slowly stripped away.

* * *

Another week passed before Gerard lit upon a solution.

Maybe “solution” was stretching it. He couldn’t be sure it would work; it probably wouldn’t, honestly. But he didn’t have any other ideas, and he couldn’t ask Mum for help.

(He could. He _could._ She would find it interesting, like she always did. It would put her in a good mood, and it might even last.

Except, she would take the book away and let the child fade away for good. She wouldn’t even _hesitate_.)

“You said before that the story was wrong,” he said one night, while Mum slept and the Lonely child took shelter in Gerard’s bedroom. “What did you mean?”

“ _I don’t think it was supposed to go that way,_ ” the boy said. “ _I knew what book I wanted. And it looked like that book. It had the same title and everything. But it was all wrong._ ”

Gerard leaned forward and asked, “What book was it supposed to be?”

It was easy to slip out from time to time. Mum kept the doors locked against anyone coming in, but she never put much effort into keeping Gerard in. She didn’t have to; Gerard would either die or come back, and the two seemed equal in her eyes. Even when Gerard set out with a plan in his mind to never return, always, eventually, he’d come crawling back to the shop with an empty belly and a curve to his spine that never quite left.

So, when Mum left the house the following day for an errand, Gerard barely waited before slipping out after her.

It was a gamble on whether she’d notice the money missing; she didn’t count it like she counted chocolate truffles and Leitners and other things she really valued. He wasn’t worried; worst case scenario, she’d shout and swing at him maybe once before she lost interest in the whole thing and moved on. It was enough for a two-way trip on the tube, just as far as the public library.

He came here from time to time, when things got to be too much at home and he had to run away. He’d given up on finding anything to read, after the well-meaning librarian’s futile attempts to help. But he liked the smell of the place, and the plush chairs, and the quiet.

As he entered the children’s section his stomach clenched, as it always did. There was nothing disgusting or dangerous here; quite the opposite, and that was the problem. His last few attempts to read something normal had ended with him dissatisfied and angry and feeling far more alone than he ever had before.

But he was on a mission now. This time, he knew what he was looking for.

He found the author first—she had half a shelf of books, hard covers laminated and stamped, pages well-thumbed and dog-eared. The one that Gerard was looking for sat square in the middle of them, and he gingerly eased it out with flinching fingers.

A quick peek past the cover reassured him—no bookplate.

The first few pages had him frowning—not the way he’d frowned the first time he tried to read kids’ books. It simply made no sense; there were names he didn’t recognize and words that he was pretty sure weren’t actual words, and it felt more like he’d opened to the middle of a book than the beginning.

The Lonely child had said it was part of a series, wasn’t it?

Gerard looked back to the shelf and suppressed a sigh. He’d been hoping to only read one book today, but if he couldn’t understand it, then it wouldn’t help, would it? He’d have to start at the beginning.

He pulled the first few off the shelf, stacked them carefully on top of the one he already had, and made his way to one of the plush chairs he liked. He set his small stack on the floor beside him, then sifted through them and flipped to the first pages until he was satisfied as to which one was supposed to come first.

With a sigh, Gerard settled into his seat and opened _The Moomins and the Great Flood._

* * *

The first book that Gerard ever tried to read was called _Ramona and Her Mother,_ and he’d hated it from the first page.

He hadn’t hated it the way he hated Leitners. The book wasn’t dangerous, and it had never soaked up smiles from Mum that she never spared for him. But the world outside of Pinhole Books—the one that wasn’t crawling with monsters and Dread Powers—frustrated him. It existed within reach, taunting him with a shallow ignorant contentment that he couldn’t have, no matter how many times he tried to reach for it. And the book had been a piece of that world, shrunk down and shoved into a yellowed paperback that crackled when he turned the pages. The story mocked him with characters whose lives and problems played at being familiar, but didn’t make any sense to him. In the end he’d kicked it across the floor and gone crawling back home again.

These books… weren’t like that.

It wasn’t that they were familiar. Far from it; the world trapped in these pages was like nothing Gerard had ever seen. But that was the nice thing; it had some of the familiar trappings of the real world, existing unobtrusively in the background, but everything else about it, all the important things, were strange and inexplicable in ways he found almost calming.

He didn’t know what a moomin was. But that was alright, because he wasn’t meant to. They didn’t exist outside of the book. These stories weren’t about his world, but they weren’t about the world that taunted him, either. If anything it was a soft midpoint between the two, full of strange creatures and lurking monsters, just familiar enough to hold his attention, but unfamiliar enough to be tantalizing.

And so he read on.

Gerard was halfway through the third book in the stack when he put it down, hands shaking. He checked himself over, then got up from his seat to make a quick circuit of the library before returning. Finding nothing amiss, he retrieved the book and checked, once more, for a bookplate. He went through each book, just to make sure.

None. These weren’t Leitners. But they had to be, he _knew_ they had to be. Books that left you with strange, unfamiliar feelings had to be Leitners, and he’d just read three of them and put his hands all over several more. And the worst part was, he couldn’t tell which of the Dread Powers it was.

Shaken, Gerard abandoned the stack of books and fled the library without another word.

His heart was pounding as he crept inside. The lights were on and Mum was home, and that meant she’d _know_ , the second she saw him. Mum had just enough of the Beholding in her to see the scars left by the Powers. She’d know what he did.

Gerard passed by her, heart in his throat, and she barely gave him a second glance.

That was important—she gave him a first glance, but not a second.

Emboldened, he tried again, passing before her eyes so he could be sure that she’d see him. All she did was snap at him for getting underfoot.

“ _Did you find it?_ ” the Lonely child asked late at night, when the house was dark and silent.

“Yeah,” Gerard answered. “But I didn’t read it yet.”

“ _Oh._ ” He sounded so crestfallen that Gerard couldn’t help scoffing and kicking out a little. His foot caught something with a gentle, glancing blow, rewarding him with a quiet _oof_.

“I’m _going_ to,” Gerard said. “It just didn’t make any sense, so I found the other ones first.”

“ _Oh!_ ” the boy sounded relieved. “ _What do you think?_ ”

“What?”

“ _Do you like them?_ ” he asked, a little eagerly. “ _I do._ ”

“No,” said Gerard, because if he liked them then that meant they had him.

“ _Oh._ ” He was back to sounding crestfallen again. “ _I’m sorry. You don’t have to read them if you don’t want to._ ”

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did— “What did you just say?”

“ _You don’t have to read them,_ ” the boy said. “ _If you don’t like them._ ”

The words stuck in his head for the rest of the night, and he wasn’t sure why. They weren’t complicated. They were dead simple, actually. Short, easy words in a short, easy idea.

He went back to the library the next day. The books had been put away, but they were still there on the shelf where he’d first found them. Gerard stood before it, staring at them—glaring, even—and waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure.

Finally, when enough empty minutes had passed, he reached out and pulled down the one he’d been reading. His heart leapt to his throat again, but he swallowed the feeling down and simply held it in his hands. It was an experiment, that was all. Nothing to be afraid of. He’d already read half of it and two more like yesterday—if anything was going to happen, then it was already too late to do anything about it.

He opened it, read a few lines, and closed it again. He put it back, and walked away.

The book let him.

He wasted another hour just testing the book, trying its patience. He must have looked strange, to anyone in the library who might be watching. But he couldn’t help it, could he? He’d never encountered a book like this before—a book that made him feel strange things that he couldn’t quite describe, and yet let him close it, and put it down, and walk away, and come back when _he_ wanted.

More than once he sat down and opened it again to read it properly, and found that the feelings returned. But instead of drawing him in and devouring him whole, they were gentler every time he came back.

It was late afternoon, and Gerard had finished the fifth book, when he finally skipped ahead to the one he was actually there for.

 _Tales from Moominvalley_ , the title read. Each book so far seemed to be its own story, so it might not hurt to skip. And this one looked like a collection of shorter stories. Carefully—checking one last time that there was no Leitner bookplate on the inside cover—he flipped to the table of contents.

Partway down the list, his eyes widened.

 _The Invisible Child,_ it read.

When he started it, he was sure he’d been wrong. It didn’t start with a little girl and her aunt at all. It started with the usual characters, and the child from the title didn’t come in until a couple of pages in. She even had a name.

There were just enough similarities to keep him reading—an invisible little girl, a cruel caretaker, the loss of her voice—but beyond that, it wasn’t all that different from the rest of the stories he’d read. Simple, oddly sweet, with a strange feeling threaded through it all that Gerard couldn’t quite name.

He read more closely when the story mentioned a medicine to cure the invisibility, but as he got to the end, he was forced to accept that the story wasn’t going to tell him what was in it.

He read it again, several more times to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. In the end he closed the book, left the library, and wondered where he was supposed to go from here.

“ _You found it?_ ” the Lonely boy asked, quietly eager. “ _The real one, not the bad one?_ ”

“Obviously,” Gerard scoffed. “You’ve got the bad one.”

“ _Oh,_ ” he said sheepishly. “ _Then… there’s only one of them, right?_ ”

“Should be.” Gerard thought for a moment. Mum said the Leitners were all unique. So that must mean there weren’t copies of the same one. They might not be as valuable, if there were.

“ _Gerard?_ ” The bed dipped, making him jump. He could swear that had never happened before, but it must have, right? This was a real person, and not just a cold spot hovering in midair. “ _Could I come with you to the library? Tomorrow?_ ”

“What for?”

“ _I want to read it. Th-that’s why I picked up this one. But it was wrong, and I want to read the real one._ ”

“Fine, sure. Tomorrow, alright?” Mum was still busy with one of her projects. She’d hardly miss him.

“ _Thank you,_ ” the nameless boy murmured. “ _And thanks for reading it. I know you don’t like them._ ”

Gerard stiffened. “I didn’t say that.”

“ _Yes you did. I asked, and you said no._ ”

He had, hadn’t he. He’d been scared, then. Stupid, for thinking a book was a Leitner just because he enjoyed the story in it. “I changed my mind.”

“ _Oh! Really?_ ”

“Don’t make a big thing of it,” he grumbled, turning over.

The child didn’t laugh at him. ( _Ninny didn’t laugh either,_ he thought, unbidden.) But Gerard imagined he could feel the chill in the air ease, just a little.

* * *

“There has to be something I can call you,” Gerard said under his breath. The library was quiet but never silent; if he talked softly enough, no one would notice that he was talking to thin air.

“ _I still don’t remember my name._ ”

“Then just pick one. Don’t you ever wish people would call you something else?”

There was a moment of silence. Then—“ _Do… do you?_ ”

“Yeah. All the time.” It occurred to Gerard then that this might be one of those things that was normal to his world and no one else’s.

“ _Why?_ ”

He shrugged. “Don’t like how Mum says it. And she’s been saying it all my life, so now it’s ruined.”

“ _I like it…_ ”

“Must be nice for you.”

The boy sighed, sounding a little annoyed. It was better than the frightened gasps and squeaks from back when they first started talking. But it wasn’t until Gerard was reaching up to retrieve the book that he finally answered the question.

“… _Martin._ ”

Gerard paused, one finger on the spine. “What?”

“ _It’s stupid._ ”

“No, shut up. Say that again?”

“ _Do you want me to shut up or say it again?_ ”

Gerard glared at where he hoped the boy’s face was. A whispery noise reached him, not quite a laugh, but somewhere in the range of one.

“ _I-I said, Martin,_ ” he repeated. “ _I-I’ve always liked that name. Martin._ ”

Gerard shrugged. “Fine then, I’ll just call you Martin.”

“ _I told my mum once._ ” It came out forcefully, almost as if he was trying to argue. “ _She said it wasn’t—it’s not the right kind of name for me, and even if it was it’s not even that good a name, it’s plain and—_ ”

“Do I look like your mum?” Gerard scoffed. “And I’ve got to call you something, don’t I? Might as well be something you like. So you’re Martin.”

And the thing was, he didn’t mean anything by it. Or at least, he didn’t mean to _do_ anything. He was just being practical, after all, he couldn’t just keep calling him “hey you” until he remembered his name again.

But it didn’t matter, because for a split second, Gerard could see him.

It was quick, and not very clear. But Gerard was lucky enough not to blink and miss the sight of a small, chubby boy before the Lonely dragged him back again.

He couldn’t help it; he jumped.

“ _What’s the matter?_ ” Martin asked.

“Think I just saw you,” Gerard replied. “Could you do it again?”

“ _I-I didn’t do anything. But are you sure?_ ”

“I know what I saw,” Gerard insisted. “You’ve got glasses, and hair down to here.”

“ _That’s me!_ ” Martin’s voice was hushed but excited, as if he was sharing a precious secret. “ _You can call me Martin, if you want._ ”

Gerard wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, so he shrugged. “Good. I was going to.”

In the end, Martin couldn’t read the book himself when he was already holding one that he couldn’t afford to put down. So, instead, Gerard held the book for him and turned the pages when he asked, tolerating the cold on one side so that Martin could sit close enough to read.

Gerard hadn’t even looked at the other stories before skipping to the one he thought would help. He’d never read like this before, huddled up with someone reading over his shoulder. Mum either set a book in front of him and left, or watched him like a hawk as he struggled. He used to tell himself it was so she could protect him, in case one of the books tried to hurt him. Then he accidentally wrinkled a page on one, and he learned that it wasn’t him that she wanted to protect.

But Martin leaned on him, a cold but bearable weight, and made soft humming noises at the parts that Gerard had already read.

He felt Martin tense when they got to the chapter about the invisible child, and he almost closed the book. But Martin shook his head—he was close enough for Gerard to feel his cold, damp hair against his neck—and insisted on reading on.

Once they reached the end, with Ninny visible again and laughing, Gerard felt him relax again.

“ _That was nice._ ” Martin sounded relieved. “ _That was really nice._ ”

Gerard snorted. “Didn’t help you, did it. Least it could’ve done is say what went into that medicine that fixed her.”

“ _Maybe. I still liked it._ ”

“Guess so.”

They finished off that book, and when Martin didn’t object, Gerard started on the one he’d skipped before. The lingering chill remained in his periphery—it wasn’t going anywhere as long as Martin wasn’t—but it was a bearable sort of discomfort. With Martin pressed up against him, he couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that here, with the Lonely so viciously close, he was the closest he’d ever been to another person.

He was nearly done with the book when it occurred to him that Martin hadn’t said anything for a while, or moved for that matter. Poking him brought him around with a faint murmuring, and Gerard realized with a jolt that Martin had fallen asleep on him.

He hadn’t realized that Martin could sleep, like this. Where had he been sleeping before?

Gerard didn’t bother asking. Questions like that didn’t do much except make Martin upset, and—well. Stupid thought, really. He had no reason to believe the story had anything to do with the Leitner. But in it, making Ninny upset made the invisibility last longer. So, better safe than sorry.

Martin put up a fight when Gerard tried to bully him under the covers that night—“ _It’s your bed! I can’t kick you out of your bed!_ ”—until Gerry rolled his eyes and pulled him down next to him. Martin made an empty hump under the blankets, just like in the story, and he fidgeted for a while before he settled down. It was cold that night, but Gerard was used to cold nights.

* * *

Freedom was usually something that Gerard craved and hated in equal measure. He left the shop when he needed time out of Mum’s reach to breathe. But he could never leave for very long, not without being taunted by the ignorant world he could never be part of.

Martin changed that.

He was like a shield, or maybe a tour guide. Things that had always seemed infuriating and stupid to Gerard suddenly made sense when he explained them. And even if Gerard couldn’t see him, he could take cues by listening to the pitch of his voice, and feeling how heavily or gently the Lonely pressed down on him.

In turn, Gerard led Martin away from the treacherous spots—the places where fragments of the Dread Powers lurked and hunted. Sometimes, when Martin was feeling bold enough to let go of the Leitner with one hand, he’d reach out and hold Gerard’s. To not get lost, he said.

One day when Gerard was much older and had more in his head than what his mother had put there, he would understand what happened, and why. But at the time, at least in his eyes, there was hardly any sense to it at all.

It happened when they were getting out of a crowded train carriage. The press of bodies around him jostled Gerard from side to side, and Martin’s hand slipped from his. He didn’t think much of it, which was why the sudden drop in temperature caught him off guard.

Martin cried out, and Gerard didn’t think much of it because Martin got anxious about getting lost. He stuck his elbows out and bulled his way back into the crowd, ignoring the grumbling and glaring from the people around them. He pushed toward the heart of the cold spot and reached for it, hand out and open, and was rewarded when Martin latched on tightly and let him pull him clear.

He found a secluded spot where Martin could calm down, an empty and dingy corner of the station with nothing around them but litter and a half-smoked cigarette that someone hadn’t put out properly. They were well out of earshot from the crowds, because disembodied crying was usually a good way to attract unwanted attention.

“You aren’t going to start crying, are you?” he sighed when he heard Martin sniffle. “You didn’t even get lost. I was right there. I wasn’t about to leave you behind.”

He said it to try to get Martin to calm down. He didn’t want to hear Martin cry, and not even because it was annoying. He just didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t that it made him want to cry—Gerard couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever cried—but it made him feel awful all the same.

Instead of calming down, Martin squeezed his hand and started crying in earnest.

Frantically, Gerard looked around to see if anyone had noticed; luckily, there was no one in earshot. “No, stop—what’s the matter? It was just a crowd, it wasn’t even—”

“Do you mean it?”

Gerard blinked. Martin’s voice sounded different. Not strange, exactly—the opposite of strange. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but—“What? Yes, obviously. What would I leave you for?”

It didn’t feel like a spell, or an invocation. It was just the truth. Gerard said it because he meant it. But the words were barely out of his mouth when—when there he was.

He was short, and chubby, with curly hair all the way down to his shoulders. He was a little pale too, but that might have been the cold. Gerard had seen people who crawled from the Lonely before, and they always looked like they’d lost a bit of color.

The book he had clutched to his chest looked remarkably similar to the one they’d read together at the library. It didn’t even have a lot of fog on the cover, or anything really horrifying. It just looked like a book. That was how it got you, Gerard supposed.

“Martin?” he asked cautiously.

Martin looked at him, still teary-eyed. Then he looked down, following the line of Gerard’s arm down to their joined hands. All at once, he went still.

Gerard was sure he didn’t see Martin blink for a full minute, as if he was afraid he’d disappear again the second he closed his eyes. But finally he did blink, and found that he was still there.

“Am I…?” That was why his voice sounded different; it was normal, without the fog muffling it. “Am I back?”

“Think so.” Gerard could still see wisps of fog drifting around the cover of the Leitner, licking at Martin like flames. “Um. You should probably let go of that.”

Martin tensed, clutching the book tighter to his chest. “But—but what if it takes me again?” He wasn’t crying anymore. Maybe he was too frightened to cry. “What if I let go, and I get lost?”

“You won’t.” Gerard squeezed his hand. “I’ve got you, remember?”

Martin looked down at their joined hands the way Mum sometimes looked at Leitners. No one had ever looked at any part of Gerard that way before.

Slowly, shakily, Martin loosened his grip on the book and let it fall. It hit the ground with a muffled thud.

He didn’t disappear again.

Gerard felt Martin’s sigh of relief all the way down to his bones.

“W-what now?” Martin whispered. With his now free hand, he reached up and wiped his eyes. “What if someone else picks it up?”

“They won’t,” said Gerard.

“How do you know?”

Because he could reach down and pick it up himself. He could take it home. Show it to Mum. She’d be so happy with him—maybe she’d look at him the way she looked at Leitners.

The thoughts passed through his head, touching him the way he’d touch the surface of a scab. Instead of hope, instead of pain, instead of wistful longing, he felt nothing but a vague, unpleasant itch. The scab wouldn’t go away if he scratched it—all it would do was bleed.

The smell of cigarette smoke drew his eyes. There it was, lying on the ground by a bin, still glowing and lit. Gerard retrieved it, careful not to burn his fingers on the lit end.

“Gerard?”

He hadn’t answered Martin’s question. “I’ll make sure,” he said.

The book called to him, a bit. He could see himself swallowed in the fog, far away from Mum and her books and lessons and expectations. But Martin was holding his hand. He couldn’t get lost, as long as Martin was holding his hand.

Gerard knelt down, and burned his first Leitner.


	2. Stray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: child neglect.

When the pebble rattled against his bedroom window, Martin froze. For a few seconds he sat in total silence, not daring to move a muscle in case a  stray  rustle of fabric  kept him from hearing movement in the rest of the flat .

A minute passed before he stood up, padded softly to his door, and opened it to peer out. The short hallway beyond was dark and still; no light spilled out from the crack  beneath his mother’s door. She  had already gone to sleep.

With a sigh of relief, Martin closed his door and went to open the window. Moments later a thin, pale hand reached up to grab the sill, and Martin caught it and pulled its owner in through the window.

In an instant, Gerry was in his bedroom, bright-eyed and grinning, and Martin wasted no time throwing his arms around him.  In his excitement he squeezed a quiet  _ oof _ out of him, before Gerry hugged him back.

“Where’ve you been?” Martin asked eagerly.

“Greece, not too far this time,” Gerry answered, as if Greece didn’t feel impossibly far away. “One of mum’s contacts found an old abandoned library, and she had to check it for Leitners.”

Martin winced as he drew back. “Did she…?”

“Not this time.” Gerry’s  smile was tired but reassuring. “ Something else got there first. I haven’t seen her so mad in ages.”

Martin pursed his lips, torn. He knew enough about Leitners to know that keeping them out of Gerry’s mum’s hands was a good thing, but at the same time, an angry Mary Keay usually meant Gerry taking the brunt of it, whether or not he was the one to make her angry in the first place.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Gerry said with another lopsided grin, before flopping down on Martin’s bed. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Yeah… did you get here okay?”

“Of course,” Gerry snorted. “It’s not hard. What about you? How’re things?”

Martin sat down next to him. “Pretty boring. School’s… well. It’s school. You know, we’ve actually been learning about Greece. Ancient Greece, I mean.”

“I know a bit about ancient Greece,” Gerry said thoughtfully. “They had loads of libraries. Lots of Beholding worship back then.”

“Oh, well, we learned a bit about their gods—um, actual gods, not Powers.” Martin hesitated. “D’you want to hear about them?”

“Sure.” Gerry sighed, but it was a relieved sigh and not an annoyed one. “Tell me all about them.”

In the end, Martin pulled out one of his school books to show him. It explained things a lot better than he could, and it had accompanying pictures and illustrations. The section on religion wasn’t very big, and it didn’t take long for Martin to finish.

“That’s about it,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “We didn’t talk about this stuff a lot. Mostly we learn about who they traded with, or fought wars with.”

“Sounds boring.”

“It is, a little bit,” Martin admitted. “We read a bit of poetry, though. I liked that.”

Gerry’s nose wrinkled a little. “Poetry about what?” he asked warily.

“Not dead animals,” Martin assured him. “It’s  _ epic _ poetry. Old stories and stuff.”

“ Huh.” Gerry nodded thoughtfully. “Why do you need to know this stuff?”

Martin shrugged. “One of my teachers says if you don’t know history, you’re doomed to repeat it.” Gerry squinted thoughtfully at that as he went on. “Oh! And the Greeks made stuff that’s sort of still around now. Like philosophy, and democracy, stuff like that.”

Not that Gerry would know much about either of those things, he remembered. Lots of stuff that Martin took for granted were novelties for Gerry, if he knew about them at all. Sometimes it sounded like he lived in a horror story, and people in horror stories didn’t have much use for Socrates.

“Oh!” In the excitement of realization, Martin almost forgot to keep his voice down. He froze, listened to the silence for a few seconds, then stooped to retrieve his rucksack. “We read a story in class last week. I think you might like it? I know you like the scary ones.”

Gerry sat up, eyes bright and eager. He liked to read, which Martin privately thought was a miracle considering he’d grown up surrounded by Leitners. But finding things he liked could be a bit of a trial. Gerry had no patience for mundane stories about people living their lives—on bad days they seemed to make him angry, even. He liked fantasy books because, he said, they were so far away from his own life and anybody else’s that there was nothing to get upset about. He liked Dianna Wynne Jones well enough, and he liked some of Roald Dahl’s books, though not all of them. His favorites so far had been _The Deptford Mice,_ a bit too grim and gruesome for Martin’s taste, but Gerry had been enamored.

Because what he really liked were the scary ones, the more ghoulish the better. And Martin was sure he’d like this one.

“It’s called ‘The Monkey’s Paw’,” Martin told him, flipping to the right page. “Ever read it?”

“No.” Gerry reached for it, fingers curling in the air as if beckoning for it. Martin pushed it into his hands, and Gerry curled up on Martin’s bed and started reading. Smiling to himself, Martin went back to finishing up his homework.

Gerry was a fast reader. Martin was barely done when he sat up again, closed the book, and gave it back with a quiet laugh. “Did you like it?” Martin asked.

Gerry’s smile was a little bit grim. “ They got lucky in the end,” he said. “Most people aren’t.”

Martin wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it sounded suspiciously like Gerry was saying cursed wish-granting monkey’s paws were real. It wasn’t too far-fetched, considering that Martin had almost been eaten by fog that came out of a book, but it still didn’t bear thinking about.

“I can ask my teacher for more stories like it,” Martin offered. “She said lots of famous short stories are horror.”

Gerry nodded, then slid down to sit beside Martin on his bedroom floor. “So, how’s your mum?”

“She’s… fine,” Martin replied, caught off guard by the question. “I mean, she’s been doing well. She still has trouble sleeping, some days.” he glanced anxiously at the door. “It’s not much trouble. As long as we’re quiet, it’ll be fine.”

“She won’t come check?” Gerry asked.

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked it. It probably wouldn’t be the last, considering that he asked every time he visited. Martin’s answer hadn’t changed, and he doubted that it ever would.

“She doesn’t come in here,” Martin told him. “Not unless I make too much noise.”

Pursing his lips, Gerry nodded. Martin could tell he still couldn’t quite believe it, not that he blamed him. Martin had spent weeks lurking around Gerry’s home when he was nine, barely two years before. He knew all too well about Mary Keay’s penchant for barging into his room unannounced.

Sometimes he couldn’t decide whether to feel relieved that his own mum wasn’t like that, or envious that she didn’t even bother checking in on him from time to time.

Of course, there were advantages to this.

“She’s asleep now,” said Martin. “And there’s still stew left over from dinner. Are you hungry?”

He didn’t really have to ask. Gerry was as thin as he always was, all baggy clothes and sharp cheekbones. He was always at least a little bit hungry.

The hallway was still dark and silent when Martin took Gerry’s hand and led him out of his room. His mother’s quiet snores could be heard from the next room over, which was at least a little comforting to hear. Martin’s throat was tight with the usual nervousness, but he knew there was nothing to worry about. Gerry already knew how to walk softly.

They made it to the kitchen without incident. Martin fixed up a bowl and put it in the microwave, then watched the numbers go down so that he could stop it before it beeped. Gerry was just shy of ravenous when Martin finally put the reheated stew in front of him.

They didn’t talk, out here. It was too risky without any extra doors to close. But Martin sat next to him, close enough for their shoulders to bump, and the room felt warmer for it.

They cleaned the dishes together after, pressed up against each other at the sink, before retreating back to the safety of Martin’s room. Martin gently bullied him into brushing his teeth with the spare toothbrush he had squirreled away for him. Gerry relented and indulged him, which he didn’t always do. He must have really missed him, then.

It was late. Martin had school in the morning, and Gerry had to go home before he was missed. The sooner he could fall asleep, the more likely he’d wake up in time to see Gerry off as the sun rose.

The bed was a little cramped, but the quilt was warm and the pillow was just wide enough for both their heads. Gerry was already drifting off by the time Martin crawled in beside him. If patterns held, he would wake up in a few hours to Gerry twitching in a nightmare, and he’d carefully shake him until Gerry stirred and calmed down and latched onto his arm tight enough to give him pins and needles.

In the morning Gerry would leave again, and Martin would go to school, and he’d come home to a silent flat and a bed that felt too big and empty on all the nights Gerry didn’t visit.

For now, Martin pressed his cheek to dirty-blond hair, closed his eyes, and fell asleep curled around his best friend.


	3. Save

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: child neglect, implied emotional abuse, canonical minor character death (referenced).

He found his way to the park by muscle memory—had to, when it felt like he couldn’t quite reach his own brain. The ash tree stood nearest to the gate, still thick with leaves in the late spring. He stood in the darkest bit of shade, back pressed to the rough bark, and shut his eyes in relief beneath the gentle darkness.

He waited, and soon enough Martin came trudging down the pavement, schoolbag swinging from his shoulder. These days they planned their meet-ups well in advance, and Gerry had been looking forward to seeing him for weeks. With a deep breath, he opened his eyes just in time to see Martin hurrying toward him. There was a smile on his face at first, but it quickly faded the closer he came.

Gerry knew he had to look awful. He’d caught a glimpse of himself in a grimy mirror when he ducked into a public toilet—glassy-eyed, barely blinking, marks under his eyes as dark as bruises. His face had been bloodless, his lips pale and bitten.

The sun was out, with summer on its way, but Gerry’s hands were cold, and they didn’t stop shaking until Martin took them.

Martin was silent, but Gerry could tell he was fretting to himself. Martin always fretted when Gerry showed up like this, but the only alternative was not showing up at all, and if he did that then Martin might do something silly, like come to Pinhole looking for him.

“I was going to say, we’ll have to be careful,” Martin said quietly. “Mum was in a mood when I left this morning, and she’ll probably still be in one now.” He smiled weakly. “Not really in the mood for visitors.”

Gerry felt his lip curl in contempt, and forced the sneer off his face. It wasn’t for Martin, never for Martin, but Gerry had never felt anything but scorn for Martin’s mother. How threatening could she possibly be—she’d never touched a Leitner in her life, never tasted the fear that he lived and breathed every day. His own mother’s punishments involved blood and nightmares and curses. What was one bitter woman’s temper tantrums to that?

Not that he’d say that. After all, no matter what Martin’s mum did, Gerry wasn’t the one who had to deal with her. Martin was.

“Gerry?” Martin gave Gerry’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Gerry took a deep breath and let it out again, shuddering all the way. He wanted to say it, and he didn’t want to say it. There were plenty of things about him that he was always afraid that Martin would one day find, and finally decide he was more trouble than he was worth.

But at the same time, didn’t that mean he deserved to know about them?

“Can we just—” Gerry stopped, swallowing thickly. “Can we just go home?”

This wasn’t just another dangerous thing that happened to Gerry. This one _mattered_. He had to tell him, so he would.

But if this was the last one of these days, then at least he could make it a good one.

“Okay,” Martin answered, smile remaining stubbornly in place. “Let’s go, then.”

Gerry said nothing on the way back, only counting the glances Martin shot his way. The last time Martin stared at him like that was because Gerry’s first attempt at dyeing his hair had left uneven patches, missed spots, and stains on his neck. And now, on top of that, his nail polish was chipped and peeling and his eyeliner was two days old and smudged. When he looked down, he could see the pale streaks of dust and cobwebs on his shirt. Of course it had to be the Mastodon one that Martin had found at a charity shop for him; he’d worn it for luck, and now it was filthy. Wordlessly, he swallowed down his shame.

The sun was beginning to go down by the time they reached the old block of flats where Martin lived. Reluctantly Gerry broke away from him at the door, and made his way to the drab stretch of courtyard beneath Martin’s bedroom window.

A few minutes later the window opened, and Martin poked his head out and reached down to help him climb in. It wasn’t as easy as it had been when they were younger. Gerry had just finished a growth spurt, and he might be in trouble if his legs got any longer.

They couldn’t talk, once Gerry was inside like this. They could whisper a little if they were careful, but Martin’s mother was sensitive to noise. Gerry still wasn’t sure what she do if she found out about his visits, but the thought of discovery always made Martin look ill. Better to play it safe and never be caught.

Gerry didn’t let go right away, and his fingers warmed in Martin’s grasp. The familiar smell of Martin’s room calmed him, and he gradually started to come back into himself.

“Mum’s still in a mood,” Martin whispered, barely daring to breathe too hard. “I’ll be back with tea and some food, alright?”

Gerry nodded wordlessly, and when Martin gently pulled him into a hug, he sank into it gratefully. Martin’s clothes still smelled like detergent, nothing like the dust-and-mildew reek that still clung to his own.

After a moment Martin began to pull back. Gerry loosened his grip to let him go, only for Martin to turn his head and press a quiet kiss to the side of his head.

Gerry froze. Martin never done that before. He wasn’t sure what you were supposed to do when your best friend kissed you on the head for the first time. But his body had its own plans regardless of his head’s indecision; a shiver ran through him, and he melted deeper into the hug, just for a moment, before letting go.

He made himself comfortable while Martin was gone, slipping off his shoes and trying in vain to brush the dust streaks from his clothes. He paid his usual visit to Martin’s bookshelves, smiling when he recognized some of the trinkets cluttering the empty space: a plastic figurine he’d bought at a gift shop in Athens, some polished rocks he’d picked up in the United States, a spiral shell fossil he’d found in Nepal, various good luck charms he’d brought back. Martin kept all of them squirreled away on his shelves, hidden from his mother’s eyes but out on display for Gerry to see.

Voices reached his ears from beyond the door—well, one voice, at least. Martin’s mother had her own way of snapping, recognizable even if he couldn’t make out the words. It made Gerry’s stomach twist, hearing anyone talking to Martin that way.

Eventually Martin returned, bearing a plate and a steaming mug of tea. It was simple, easy food—boxed pasta with sauce from a can, frozen vegetables boiled with a stock cube for flavor—in double portions so they could split it. Martin looked as harried as he always did when he got snapped at, but his face softened again when Gerry caught his eye.

Gerry got up to take the plate from him, risking a whispered _thank you_ before the door was even closed.

They ate together on the floor with their knees touching, Gerry with one of Martin’s history textbooks open beside him, Martin with his notes from class spread out. It was well enough that they couldn’t talk yet; Gerry liked the quiet, and Martin had his assignments, the usual stuff along with something called A Levels that he’d have to start worrying about soon. For hours as the sun went down, the two of them existed in the silent, secret world they shared.

The hours passed. Martin got up from time to time, to tend to things beyond the sanctuary of the bedroom. When ever he returned, he went back to his spot next to Gerry on the bed. There was plenty of room to spread out, but they sat pressed together anyway, held whispered snatches of conversation, and shared books between them as the sun went down. Eventually they froze at the sound of footsteps, listening with bated breath as Martin’s mother went to bed. Only then, when the flat was dark and the sound of faint snoring signaled safety, did they emerge.

They did the dishes together. Gerry usually did the cleaning at home, because that sort of thing never really occurred to Mum, and if he didn’t do it then it simply wouldn’t get done. It was nice to do it here, shoulder to shoulder with Martin at the sink, trading whispers until their hands were pruney and the kitchen was clean.

Afterward, Gerry left Martin’s side to slip into the shower. The water was mostly cold with snatches of lukewarm, but it was a relief to finally scrub all the dust and grime off. If he spent a little more time than usual cleaning his hands tonight, then that was his business.

When he emerged with wet hair and reddened eyes, he found a fresh set of clothes waiting for him outside the door—his own clothes, left here on previous visits. He got dressed, flicked off the closed door to Martin’s mother’s bedroom, and slipped back into the warmth of Martin’s.

The smell of dust and mildew was gone, buried in the laundry basket beneath several layers of Martin’s own clothes. He smelled like cheap soap and shampoo-conditioner instead, which would have been a step up even if it didn’t remind him of Martin. When Gerry sat down beside him again, Martin carefully shifted to let him lean against him. A bit of water from Gerry’s damp hair soaked into his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to mind it much. He simply reached down and found Gerry’s hand, interlocking their fingers and pulling their hands so tight together that Gerry could swear he felt Martin’s pulse against his own wrist.

It was a good day. If it was going to end, then it might as well end with him feeling like this.

“Someone died today,” Gerry told him, speaking without whispering for the first time.

Martin didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t even sigh or hum like he sometimes did when he felt too much for words.

“I was in Westminster,” Gerry went on. “Pall Mall. Ever been there?” Martin shrugged. “Lot of old buildings. And there’s this old club there, that—it’s having work done on it. Down in the basement, repairing walls, stuff like that.” He sniffed. “Thing is, the whole place is built right over these tunnels, and…” He hesitated, struggling to string the right words together.

“I’m guessing some bad things happened down in those tunnels?” Martin said.

Gerry laughed, dry and wheezy. “Yeah, you could say that. And—Mum’s mentioned the place before. She doesn’t like it—old gentleman’s club, not really her scene. But I know she’d love to have a look around there. Seems to think it’d be a good place to find Leitners.”

He paused for a moment, grounding himself with his grip on Martin’s hand.

“Turns out she was right.”

Beside him, Martin sucked in a shaky breath.

“So I went, late last night,” Gerry went on. “Thought I’d sneak in while there was no one there, but then there _were_ people working—at two in the morning, who _does_ that? And I should’ve—I should’ve left, but they were so close. I could _smell_ it. So I—I broke through one of the walls, and I went into the tunnels.”

He could still smell it—the damp, and the rot, and the mingled blood-fire-ash-earth scent of many fears converging on a single point.

“They followed me. Dunno why. I thought it’d be fine, I thought I’d just be quick, grab any books and run before anything happened, but then one of them followed me down the wrong passage, and…” His voice caught in this throat. “And he’s dead now.”

Martin went still.

“I don’t know which of them took him.” Gerry clung to his hand, bracing himself for the moment Martin would pull it away. “Happened too fast, and I just—ran. I burned the book, and then…”

And then he’d waited, and wandered, and loitered anywhere people let him, until the time came that he could meet Martin under the ash tree.

Martin didn’t pull away; Martin squeezed his hand tighter.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Gerry wanted to laugh. He didn’t, because it would have come out high and a little hysterical. He’d just confessed to getting someone killed, and Martin wanted to know if _he_ was okay. Wasn’t that just like him?

“I’m alive,” he rasped. “Unlike that—he was just some construction worker. I didn’t even know his _name_ , and he’s dead because of me.”

“It’s not—”

“Not my fault? Tell me how it’s not my fault.”

“He didn’t have to follow you into the creepy tunnels at two in the morning. You didn’t make him go with you—”

“Martin.” The back of his throat tasted like bile and blood. “You can’t fix this. Someone’s dead because of me. That’s all there is to it.”

Silence stretched between them, but still Martin did not let go of his hand.

“You burned the book?” He asked, eventually. Gerry nodded. “It didn’t hurt you?” He shook his head. “Good. I’m glad it’s gone.”

“The book wasn’t what killed him,” Gerry said hoarsely. “It wasn’t anything. Didn’t do anything except drop bones.” Worthless. Pointless. A man was dead just so Gerry could burn a useless bit of viscera.

“I’m sorry,” Martin said softly, as if any of this was even remotely his fault. “And I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Gerry’s eyes burned, but the relief of tears never came. “I _killed_ someone.”

“ _No you didn’t._ ” Martin let go of his hand at last, but it was only so he could take hold of Gerry’s shoulders instead. His eyes were like steel. “I won’t—I won’t argue with you about whether or not it’s your fault, because—well, I don’t think it’s your fault, but I wasn’t there. But I know you didn’t kill him. I _know_ that, and you can’t argue on that.”

“What’s the difference?” Gerry spat. “If I killed him or just got him killed?”

“Because you didn’t _mean_ to.”

“And that matters?”

“I think it does,” Martin said stubbornly. “There’s loads of difference between someone dying by accident, and being murdered. And you’re _not_ a murderer.”

Martin hadn’t let go, not really. Not in a way that counted. His grip was as firm as ever, holding Gerry in place, keeping him close.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Martin said again. His voice was thick, and his eyes shone beneath his glasses. “I’m really glad you got out. I’m glad you’re here.”

Gerry let his head fall forward onto Martin’s shoulder. Martin’s arms wrapped around him, and he went limp and let himself be held. Another kiss came, soft against his temple, and his eyes slid shut. He curled his hands into the back of Martin’s T-shirt, holding on for all he was worth.

“Next time, maybe,” Martin murmured.

“What?”

Martin pulled back again, just far enough to look him in the eye. “If there’s a next time,” he said. “You can try again, and maybe save someone. You’re good at that.”

He scoffed. “I’m not good at saving people.” Martin frowned, and he shook his head. “I’m not. I can’t save anyone.”

“You saved _me,_ ” Martin argued. “Don’t I count?”

His throat felt thick. Was he choking? Or was this what it felt like when he was about to cry?

“Of course you count,” he choked out. “You’ve always counted and you’re always gonna count, and I’ll pull you out of the Lonely all over again if I have to.”

Martin’s eyes shone brightly, and—

The first kiss was cautious, pressed to the corner of Gerry’s mouth while he sat still and tried to untangle his feelings. The second was bolder, clumsier, with Martin unsure what to do and Gerry not much better. Both were so small, so brief and careful, and they didn’t make anything go away. Nothing would. He would dream of corpses in tunnels, and the guilt would still gnaw at him when he woke up.

But Martin was here, wrapped around him, every piece of what Gerry called home bundled into a single person. The night would end in traded whispers and kisses, in soft breathing, in the space they both inhabited, crammed together on a bed that wasn’t made to hold two.

All the more reason not to let go until morning.


	4. Secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Emotional and physical abuse, breakup (though neither of them want to), canonical financial troubles.

Martin got off the train and wondered if he was making a mistake.

Instinct told him that yes, he was. But instinct at the moment was mostly informed by Gerry’s long-held conviction that, no matter what else happened, Martin needed to stay as far away from Mary Keay as possible. And today, walking out of the Morden station, he was the closest he’d ever been since he was nine.

Gerry’s convictions were sound, though. Eight years past, and Martin could still remember what it felt like just to stand in the same room with her. Even with the Lonely muting the world around him, the fear had been sharp and merciless.

If all went well, he wouldn’t run into her again. Gerry had been sneaking into his room for years without Mum noticing. If he was careful, and very very lucky, he could do the same.

It was only as he neared the old building that he remembered that he had no concrete plan. His intentions had been vague when he left; he thought he’d loiter a bit, watch the door to see if anyone came in or out, and hopefully catch Gerry if he was there. Gerry didn’t have a phone; the bookshop had a landline, but Martin wasn’t quite desperate enough to call it.

Though…

Maybe he could ring just long enough to see if anyone picked up? There couldn’t be any harm in that.

He turned a corner before he reached the shop, inwardly wrestling with himself. No matter how this shook out, even in a best case scenario where Gerry was there and Martin could see him with Mary none the wiser, Gerry would be furious that he came at all. There were reasons he didn’t want Martin anywhere near Pinhole Books and Martin _knew_ that, he really did, but…

It just wasn’t fair, was it? Gerry had an open invitation to his place at any time as long as he was home, and all Martin could do was wait for him. Even on days when the loneliness got to him and life got to be a little too much, even on days when he _needed_ the comfort of his boyfriend’s presence, visiting was out of the question.

But he was here, literally too close for comfort, desperate and hopeful for the only sympathetic ear he could rely on. For all he knew, the Keays were in another country again, and coming here was a waste of money that he could no longer afford to make.

He wandered the streets for a while, watching for any sign of Gerry. But there was nothing, of course. An hour—he’d give it an hour, and then he’d go home and have a nice little breakdown in the privacy of his own room, alone, hopefully without alerting his mother. He’d just have to be patient. Wait for word from Gerry. He could do that, he could be patient—

“Can I help you?”

Martin had never really forgotten that voice.

He felt dizzy for a moment, blinking rapidly to dispel the feeling before it toppled him. When he looked up, he found himself staring at a plain door of dark stained wood, with the brass plaque proclaiming “Pinhole Books – By Appointment Only” hanging beside it.

When had he gotten so close? He hadn’t meant to. He’d been keeping his distance for a reason.

A throat cleared behind him, and Martin turned around because there wasn’t much else he could do.

She was a small woman—smaller than Mum, and even skinnier. But where Mum was frail, this woman was like leather and wire, tough and weathered and deceptively strong. She had aged visibly in the nine years since Martin last saw her. Her hair was almost entirely steel-gray, with only a few wisps of the same dark blond as Gerry. Her face was heavily lined, skin stretched and sagging where it had once been smooth.

Her eyes were the same, though—pale and watery and just as bright and eager as before.

“Do you have an appointment?” Mary Keay asked him.

Any other time, Martin might have hesitated, just to think before speaking. But at that moment, with Mary’s glittering eyes fixed on him, the thought of allowing silence between them was unbearable. “Ah, no,” Martin answered automatically. “No, sorry—I’m not blocking your way, am I?”

His efforts were in vain; he might not want silence, but Mary didn’t seem to mind it at all, if the way she wordlessly studied him was any indication. It made his skin crawl, as if her stare had a physical weight with which she could touch him.

Suddenly, walking away was no longer an option. Walking away meant turning his back on her, and Martin had never wanted to do anything less.

Mary’s shrewd, hungry gaze drilled into him as she asked, “What are you looking for?”

“S-sorry, what am I—?” Martin shut his mouth before he could really start stammering. An excuse came to him, an easy lie with a shred of truth to it. “Oh, I’m just having a look at the shops around here,” he replied. “Job hunting.”

He only realized the implications of that after he’d already said it, when Mary’s eyebrows shot upward with apparent interest. She even smiled, a little. “Job hunting, you say?”

“Right, yeah,” Martin replied, desperate for an excuse to leave. “So, sorry to get in your way, I got a little off track so I’ll just…”

“I just happen to own that bookshop behind you,” Mary informed him, all oily politeness. “And, as it happens, I’ve an opening for an assistant.”

Martin’s heart sank deep in his chest. “Oh, ah, no thank you—that’s very kind, but I-I don’t have any experience, working in a bookshop, so—”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem at all,” Mary assured him, brushing past him to open the door to her shop. Through the open doorway, all Martin could see was the foot of a flight of stairs. “My shop isn’t exactly _conventional_. And you seem like a hardworking young man. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

She stood in the doorway expectantly, a thread of impatience winding around her smile.

Absurdly, his first thought was that he wasn’t dressed for a job interview. His jeans were ripped at the knees, his shirt and jacket were secondhand charity shop relics, and his hair wasn’t combed—not exactly business attire.

His second thought was an amalgamation of all the little things Gerry had let slip over the years, about what went on in Pinhole Books, and how dressing professionally was probably the least of his worries. He was about to leave, politeness be damned, when his third thought reached him.

When was the last time he’d been called back about an application? Weeks, at this point, and the bills were only piling up.

He’d been reading a lot of helpful books lately, all about building one’s resume and conducting oneself at an interview. And one bit of advice that had stuck out to him was _never turn down a job interview_. It was always better to have one’s foot in the door and make a decision later than to dismiss a chance outright. And even if it failed, it was still good practice for the next one.

Besides, he might see Gerry this way.

Heart pounding, Martin followed her inside.

The shop was at the top of the stairs, though it stretched the definition of “shop”. It looked less like a place of business and more like a hoarder’s den, every available surface and much of the floor piled with books. In the narrow space left to walk through, the carpet was ancient and filthy beyond recognition.

There were a lot of books, Martin noted. Surely all of them couldn’t be Leitners?

The study that Mary led him into was only a little better, since it at least looked like a place where Mary did work. He had a better view of the carpet, which wasn’t an improvement, because it wasn’t any cleaner in here. He did his best not to look too carefully at any of the stains. An antique book the size of a dictionary lay open on the desk, and Martin averted his eyes before he could properly see the words on the page.

He was quickly running out of safe places to look.

“Tea?” Mary asked, with a touch of disdain. Martin agreed automatically as he lowered himself into the chair she indicated. Mary returned presently with a steaming cup of dark liquid that was roughly the same color as tea, but there the similarities stopped. Beneath the smoky reek that drifted up from it, Martin could barely catch a faint whiff of oolong.

Martin shot a wary glance at her as she sat down before him. Did she know? Oolong wasn’t exactly uncommon. But everything else about this encounter seemed tailor-made to make him uncomfortable; serving expired tea of his least favorite type was just the cherry on top of an already miserable cake.

Across from him, Mary’s face showed nothing but the same vague, crawling smile. Only after he’d lapped gingerly at his dubious tea and managed not to grimace did she finally speak.

“I’m a busy woman,” she said. “Not as young as I used to be. And running a shop like this requires…” She sucked in a breath, face pinched with distaste. “A certain amount of busywork, that I’ve always found to be somewhat disruptive. The real work often calls me away, and even when it doesn’t, it is… shall we say, _delicate_. I can’t afford distractions, no matter how mundane.”

She paused, long enough for Martin to feel like talking wouldn’t get him murdered. “So… you need someone to do your books for you?”

Mary looked irritated. “Among other things.” The ire vanished in a flash, smoothed over with a thin sheen of pleasantness. “You seem like a quick study. And I can pay you whatever wage you name—it may not look it, but I run a _very_ lucrative business.” The corners of her mouth curled inward, deepening her smile as she held his gaze. “All you’d have to do is keep things running smoothly, watch the shop while I’m away, and fulfill any other task I might need from you.”

“I—” Martin pressed his lips shut. _I can do that,_ he’d been about to say. It had been automatic, ingrained into him after weeks of fruitless attempts to convince someone, anyone, to hire him. He hadn’t even thought about what he was offering, what it would cost him this time. He wasn’t even supposed to _be_ here.

All at once he remembered where he was, who was sitting before him. Gerry would be horrified if he found out he’d been here. He needed to leave, right now, he needed to get out of this study and this shop and…

And…

_And then what?_

What else was there, beyond the shop?

A door slammed downstairs, jolting Martin out of his thoughts. His pulse rocketed, before he recognized the heavy clomp of boots coming up the stairs. Relief flooded through him, just for a moment, before it became fear again when he realized where the footsteps were headed.

Helpless and trapped, Martin could only stare wide-eyed as Gerry stepped into the open doorway and froze.

Martin wasn’t sure what his face looked like, but Gerry’s was utterly blank. The moment their eyes locked, every hint of emotion vanished as if wiped away. In an instant Gerry was looking at him like a stranger—looking _through_ him, even, as if Martin was caught in the Lonely again.

“Who’s this?” Gerry asked, addressing his mother with a jerk of his head at Martin.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Gerard,” Mary said coolly. Martin dug his fingers into his jeans and forced himself not to shudder. “Just a new employee, isn’t that right, dear?”

“Um,” Martin’s voice shook.

“I wouldn’t take it, if I were you,” Gerry said dryly. “Employees tend to vanish around here. I hear McDonald’s is always hiring, though.”

“Gerard.” She didn’t snap at him. But there was something in her pitch and tone that promised danger.

“Seriously, get out while you still can,” Gerry went on, outwardly calm. Martin could see the tremor in his hands as he slid them into his jacket pockets.

Mary was on her feet before Martin saw her move. “Get out.”

Gerry took a step back, shoulders drawing in to take up less space. “What do you even need an employee for, anyway?” he asked. “Thought you always dump the stuff you don’t like on me.”

“Are you trying to be clever?” Martin wasn’t sure how she did it without running, or lunging, or exerting herself in any way. She just moved, and then she was in Gerry’s space, forcing him back another few steps. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the funny little games you played, the last time I allowed you the tiniest bit of trust. I’d rather not repeat it.” Her hand was on his arm, and with how tight she was gripping, it had to be painful. “And if I’m not mistaken, I doubt you would, either.” Gerry flinched, and Mary Keay smiled and tightened her grip. “Right, Gerard?”

“E-excuse me,” said Martin, and mother and son went utterly still.

“Yes?” Mary turned back to him, her mask of pleasantness back in place even as her grip on Gerry’s arm remained. Behind her back, Gerry stared at him with wordless shock and dismay.

_What are you doing?_ his eyes demanded. Martin turned away from them to focus on Mary instead.

“When do you want me to start?” he asked. “My schedule’s free.”

With a single wrench of her arm, Mary sent her son stumbling back through the doorway. Martin swallowed his relief when she finally let go of him. “Right now,” Mary replied, as if the past minute hadn’t happened at all. “I won’t keep you long, don’t worry—but as long as you’re here, I might as well show you my ledgers.”

The hour that followed was shockingly mundane. Martin hid his shaking hands as she showed him her ledgers and receipts—horribly disorganized, from what Martin could tell—and got him started organizing it all. It was a world away from keeping track of finances at home, but the principle was the same.

He was a quick study, and Mary noticed. Her approval trickled over him like oil slick, until revulsion coated the back of his throat.

The sun was going down when he finally stumbled out of the building, fist clenched around a handful of cash—a “first day bonus”, Mary had called it. Counting it, he found that it would be more than enough to cover the gas bill and next week’s groceries, more if he stretched it.

He felt sick.

Martin was halfway back to the station when he was grabbed and dragged into an alley. His back hit the brick wall, and he stared into Gerry’s furious face with hollow eyes.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” Gerry demanded.

Explanations ran back and forth through Martin’s head, all of them equally different and equally true. But he never got the chance to pick one before Gerry’s face became a runny blur, and a flood of tears overtook him.

Gerry’s grip on him eased instantly. Martin heard him curse softly, felt him step back, and instinctively moved forward to follow. Gerry’s hands returned, no longer punishing but steadying.

“Tell me what happened.” Gerry’s voice was gentle, but it left no room for argument.

“I-I didn’t mean to,” Martin choked out. “I didn’t come here to—I just wanted to see you.”

“You _know_ that’s—”

“I know it’s risky!” Martin snapped through his tears. “I know. I _know._ I just—you always show up whenever you want, and that’s _fine_ , it’s always been fine, but I’m always stuck waiting for you and _I couldn’t wait anymore._ ”

“Okay.” Gerry sounded pained. “Right. Okay. What happened? Are you in… fuck.”

_Are you in trouble._ Martin might have laughed if he wasn’t still busy crying. If he hadn’t been before, he certainly was now.

“But what possessed you to agree to work for her?” Gerry demanded. The anger was gone, taking some of Martin’s fear and tension with it. “You _know_ what she’s like.”

And no, Martin didn’t. Not really. Gerry made sure he stayed too far away to really know. “I don’t have a choice,” he said. His throat felt rough, barely allowing his voice through. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“What are you talking about? You said you had three things lined up the last time we talked—”

“I _did_ ,” Martin cut him off. “The last time we talked. They all fell through. I was back to having nothing, and we spent so much on bills and Mum’s last prescription that I didn’t know what we were gonna do for _food_ —” His breath hitched, threatening more tears. “There’s nothing else, Gerry. I don’t know what else to do.”

With his eyes clear, he could see the bleak look on Gerry’s face with perfect clarity. He looked every bit as helpless and terrified as Martin felt.

The silence passed, and all at once, Gerry’s grip on him tightened again. “If you’re going to keep coming back here,” he said, slowly, as if he hated every word out of his own mouth. “You be careful, do you understand me? And if I tell you to do something, then you do it.”

Martin nodded.

“I think—” Gerry’s voice caught. “I think I can help you. Not—I can’t be obvious about it. But I can at least keep you safe. As safe as you can be. It’s not much, but…”

“I know,” Martin assured him, reaching out to squeeze back. “And, me too, alright? I’m here too, and that means I can finally keep an eye on you properly.”

Gerry forced a grin at him, and Martin had never wanted so desperately to kiss him. He leaned forward, hands sliding to the front of Gerry’s jacket.

Gerry pulled back, and Martin froze.

“Gerry?”

For a few moments, Gerry simply stood there in his space, head lowered to stare at the dirty ground at their feet. He took a deep breath that moved his entire body, shoulders rising and falling with it.

“We can’t do this anymore,” he said quietly.

Martin’s blood turned to ice. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean we can’t—” Gerry let go to gesture between them. “This. If you’re going to be here, if you’re going to work for her, then we can’t be _this_ anymore.”

His throat ached. Was he going to cry again? “Are you breaking up with me?”

Gerry’s quiet laughter was bitter and unhappy, and his voice broke as he answered. “Yeah. Guess I am.”

“But _why?_ ” It came out as a plaintive whine, but Martin couldn’t bring himself to care. “Why can’t we just—?”

“This isn’t your flat, and she’s not your mother,” Gerry cut him off. “She knows you’re there, and she’ll be watching both of us.”

“But—”

“Martin, _listen to me,_ ” Gerry told him. “She can’t know about us, do you understand? She can’t ever know.”

“I wasn’t going to tell her!”

“ _Obviously_ you weren’t going to tell her. But it’s not as simple as that.” Gerry’s hands were against his face now, wiping away tears as they fell. “I need you to understand—she has _never_ let me keep anything I cared about. Not once. Either she takes it away, or she destroys it, or she twists it into something that hurts me instead. I can’t let her do that to you.”

“ _Gerry_.” His voice shook.

“It’s always been a risk, the way we’ve been doing things,” Gerry went on. “But at least you were so far away that she never saw you, and she never saw how I am around you. But now you’re _here_. You’re in her shop. We’re both right where she can see us. And _you work for her_. Do you understand? She can see us now. She can take you away. And she will, if she finds out what you are to me. So we _can’t._ ”

“I love you,” Martin sobbed.

“Come here,” said Gerry.

The kiss even felt like a goodbye. It was a good kiss, the best in all of Martin’s limited experience, in fact. But Martin could feel his desperation—in his vicelike grip on Martin’s shirt, in his warm weight pinning Martin back against the brick, in the pounding heartbeat Martin could feel against the side of his hand, just beneath the corner of Gerry’s jaw.

“This isn’t forever,” Martin told him, once they’d separated enough for him to talk. “Just until I find a way out.”

Gerry tucked his head into the crook of Martin’s neck. “Good.”

“For both of us,” Martin added, in case that wasn’t clear. “I’m not leaving without you. I—”

“Don’t,” Gerry cut him off, his voice tense and dangerous. “I want you to look to yourself first, understand? Don’t make a promise like that.”

“Fine,” Martin retorted, running his hand up and down the length of Gerry’s spine. “I won’t promise. I’m still gonna do it, but I won’t promise if you don’t want me to.”

Gerry sighed softly. “Guess that’s the best I’m getting from you.” He pulled back, and Martin tried not to think about how cold he felt all of a sudden. “Can you get home safe?”

“Yeah,” Martin replied. “And—you’ll still visit, right? If it gets to be too much. Even if you just want tea and a nap.”

“Yeah,” Gerry said with a smile, though Martin couldn’t be sure if he really meant it.

Gerry left one last kiss on his lips. Martin stood watching him leave, and didn’t move from the spot until he’d lost sight of him entirely.


	5. Home/Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: mentions of police/detainment, Mary Keay's canonical death and abuse.

The sun nearly blinded him as he stepped outside, after weeks of fluorescent lights that flickered and tinged every room a drab, inescapable gray. All around him, the nearest bystanders drew back to give him a wide berth as he passed. They knew his face, why he was here, and why he was leaving. They stared at him with the same fear the people in the coffee shop had, when he’d first stumbled inside with stained clothes and blood-smeared hands.

But Gerry wasn’t thinking about any of this, because Martin was standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting for him.

He was tempted to let gravity do most of the work, to just dive down the steps and let Martin catch him at the bottom. But there were people watching him now, and in their eyes he was a murderer getting off scot-free. Bad enough Martin was here for him at all, especially if Gerry’s suspicions were correct.

Luckily, Martin had always been a quick study, and caught sight of the tiny shake of Gerry’s head. He stepped back, his face carefully schooled blank, and let Gerry pass without so much as an out-of-place blink.

Gerry didn’t see him again until he was safely on the next train home, tucked away in the corner of an otherwise empty carriage. Martin darted in right as it was about to leave, and all at once the world came back into focus.

Gerry launched himself at him, crashing into him with his full weight. Martin barely rocked back; once upon a time Gerry had towered over him, but at some point in years past, Martin had overtaken him enough for Gerry to tuck his head comfortably under Martin’s chin. He did so now, reveling in the feeling of being fully surrounded.

“God, you’re so thin,” Martin murmured into his hair. He pulled back, reaching for Gerry’s face as if to check for injuries, only to withdraw his hand when Gerry flinched. “Sorry. Are you alright? No one gave you trouble on the way, did they?”

“No,” Gerry croaked. “Too scared. Martin, what did you do?”

Martin blinked, surprise flickering across his face. “What?”

“They had the book.” Gerry’s hands curled into the front of his jacket, gripping tight. “In evidence—it had her blood all over it. But it’s gone—”

“Yeah, I know, it was on the news—”

“And everything else is contaminated,” Gerry went on, heedless of Martin’s attempts to calm him. “That’s the only reason they let me go. So, Martin, _what did you do?_ ”

Martin sighed. “It wasn’t me. I swear.”

“You’re sure?” Gerry gritted out.

“Uh, yeah, I think would’ve noticed if I’d broken into an evidence locker to ruin the case against you,” Martin snorted. “Not that I wouldn’t have, given the chance, but… I couldn’t find a way in time.” He looked apologetic, as if he thought Gerry was going to blame him for not sabotaging a police investigation fast enough.

“Then how—?”

“I don’t know,” Martin said, cutting him off before he could spiral into ranting. “I really don’t, Gerry. And honestly, I don’t really want to question it?” He reached out again, this time waiting until Gerry pressed into his offered hand like a cat. “Police make mistakes. Sometimes these things just happen, and there doesn’t have to be a, a conspiracy behind it or something.”

“I just don’t get it,” Gerry went on, as Martin gently coaxed him to sit down. Belatedly he realized he’d been shaking, only because being pulled halfway into Martin’s lap made it stop. A knot of pressure rose from his chest to his throat, nearly choking off his next words. “I don’t—this kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Anything good!” Gerry blurted out, then realized what he’d just said, and who he’d said it to. “I mean—obviously you— _fuck_.”

“No, no, I think I get it,” said Martin. “It’s like you’ve had a stroke of luck, and it feels like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, right?”

“...Yeah.” Gerry let out the breath he’d been holding. “There’s always a price. I thought—with the arrest, and the murder charge, I figured that was the price, life in prison. But now I’m out, and she’s still dead, and…” He turned his head into Martin’s shoulder again. “I wish I could just trust it.”

Martin made a quiet, unhappy noise. “It’ll take time,” he pointed out. “But you’ll get there. I know you will. I’ll be there every step of the way, I promise.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips—the first one in ages. “Hey, what about you?” He tapped his finger to the underside of Martin’s chin. “You’re free, too. Wish I could’ve celebrated with you.”

“I wasn’t really in a celebrating mood,” Martin admitted. “But… we’ve got time for that now, don’t we?”

His throat closed as the words left Martin’s mouth. Cold experience taught him that was a dangerous way to talk. The Powers fed on fear, were greedy for fear, and there was no better way to harvest it than by striking when hope was at its height.

But Martin wasn’t speaking from Gerry’s world; he was speaking from his own. And with Mum gone—with his lifelong chain to the Dread Powers _gone_ —maybe he could follow him into that world.

Maybe he could let himself hope, a little.

“Maybe,” he said out loud, sounding it out as if savoring the taste on his tongue.

“D’you want to come home with me?” Martin asked, almost in a rush, like he’d been waiting to ask since he first stepped into the carriage. “I mean—we, um. We can’t really… _do_ anything? We can’t exactly just wait for my mum to leave anymore, she’s home sort of permanently these days. But we could, I don’t know—”

“Hide out in your room again?” Gerry asked with a small smile. “Just like old times? Hopefully I can still make it through the window.”

Martin flushed. “I know, it’s not exactly a romantic getaway—”

“Oh, romance?” Gerry raised an eyebrow at him, biting down on the unbidden burst of joy that roared up to overtake the dread. “Is that what you’re trying to do?”

“ _Gerry._ ”

He couldn’t help it; he laughed. He was painfully out of practice, but he managed to bark it out without scaring Martin off. “It sounds fantastic,” he said. “I—I can’t wait.”

For the rest of the journey, the carriage stayed mostly vacant. A few other passengers got on, but none of them happened to glance up and recognize his face, which was one more mercy on top of all the others that had bombarded him throughout the day. Gerry remained tucked against Martin’s side, one ear pricked to listen for his stop.

He stood as it approached, startling Martin out of a light doze. “There already?” Martin asked.

“This is me,” Gerry replied. “You don’t have to come with me, though.”

Martin blinked in confusion, before the announcement came again, and his eyes widened. “Wait, why—?”

“It’s just for a bit,” Gerry assured him. “Couple of things I have to pick up. I won’t be long.”

“Are you sure? I could…” Martin’s voice trailed off.

He’d been about to offer to come along, Gerry was certain. But Martin had his own responsibilities at home, and he’d been away long enough that his own mother might need him.

“I’m sure.” Gerry leaned down, pressed a kiss to Martin’s curls—the first in years, the first of many more to come—and stepped back. “I’ll be at your window before you know it.”

Eventually, he found himself back in familiar streets. He’d only been away for a few weeks, but Morden looked different, somehow. A little brighter, a little less dreary. Probably just his imagination, now that he never had to come back here again if he didn’t want to.

But he did, just this once. He might not have killed his mother, but there were still plenty of loose ends he needed to tie up.

All her life, his mother had coveted Leitners. But there was one that she treasured above all the others. She kept it locked away whenever it wasn’t in use, so secret and secure that not even Gerry knew where she hid the keys. She’d let him see it, a few times. But she hadn’t let him touch it. Two fingers on his right hand were still a bit crooked from the one time he’d tried to turn a page on his own.

The book was gone now. He didn’t know where it was—maybe some unsuspecting police detective had looked through it and been caught up in the same thrall his mother had, which was… not ideal. He really had been hoping that Martin had stolen it, because then he could have had a proper look through it, to see if his mother had bound her husband like he’d always suspected.

But he’d already been startlingly lucky today, so maybe it was still worth a look. Maybe his father had been important to her, enough for her to keep his page separate. It was a slim chance, almost no chance at all, but he knew where most of his mother’s hiding places were, even if he was never able to open them. With her gone, he didn’t need to find the keys. All he needed was a good ax, maybe a blowtorch if she’d really gotten fancy.

Depending on how that went, he could see about destroying the rest of her stock, and get home to Martin before dark.

The thought cheered him for the rest of the way, pushing him past the instinctive dread that overtook him at the sight of his mother’s front door. He fished out his key, unlocked it, and opened it.

Stale air wafted out, and the smell of blood and rot hit him like a gust of wind.

Gerry froze, bile rising as the taste of iron hit the back of his throat. That—that wasn’t right, was it? She’d left an awful mess, but they would’ve cleaned it up. They had people for that.

Of course, this was Pinhole Books, not a hotel room. If all they did was lock the place up and walk away quickly, he couldn’t exactly blame them, could he?

He wasn’t wrong, in the end. They hadn’t cleaned it much. The fishing wire hung empty between the shelves, waving faintly in the drafts. The stacks of books were still shoved to the sides, kept out of the way of his mother’s grisly work. The dingy old carpet was dark and stiff with old bloodstains.

And in the middle of it all, there she was—dead and twisted and bleeding power as heavily as she’d bled into the carpets weeks ago. Cradling her cherished book in her bony arms. Waiting for him to come home.

He was slammed into the shelves before he had the chance to blink. The back of his head struck the wood hard enough to blind him for a few seconds, and his ears rang so shrilly that it took a moment for him to realize that she was screaming at him.

“ _Look what you_ _ **did**_ _to me, Gerard!_ ”

He closed his eyes, and tried not to feel relieved that the other shoe had finally dropped.

* * *

He was with her for a day before Martin came.

It wasn’t a rescue.  That sort of thing wasn’t meant for Gerry.  There was no grand entrance, no shouting, no struggle. Martin simply unlocked the door with the key that Mum had given him years ago, and trudged up the stairs. He found them in the stacks, Mum with a Leitner  open  in her hands, and Gerry  mentally checking out as he did whatever she asked.

“Oh,” said Mum, barely sparing him a glance. “Back, are you?”

Martin didn’t answer her. He  spared a brief glance at Gerry,  who  tried to plead with him to leave with his eyes alone. It all might have been nearly bearable, if he could at least  have known that Martin got away clean.

Instead, Martin simply nodded  wordlessly and  walked past them.  Gerry heard the door to the study creak.  Off to do the books again.

The old baseline terror crept in, settling back into its home in the pit of his stomach. He told himself it was a relief, that he’d been hollow without it, that this was his lot in life and he wasn’t meant for things like hope and freedom.

“Pay attention,” his mother snapped, and Gerry did as he was told.


	6. Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Standard Mary Keay-related abuse, implied past transphobia, Lonely-induced memory loss, discussions of death, mild body horror, Elias Bouchard.

It was cold enough to see his breath, even after he shut the door to Pinhole Books against the early winter’s chill. Shivering, Martin tucked his scarf closer around his neck as he turned to ascend the stairs. He was fifteen minutes early, as always. If Mary Keay had ever paid attention to him outside of the odd tasks and experiments she needed him for, she could have set a watch to him. He’d read somewhere that it was good to be fifteen minutes early to things, to prepare and to appear professional.

God forbid he look unprofessional.

He made it up the steps, skipping the three that squeaked. Pinhole Books was not a place for unnecessary noise. He couldn’t set a watch to her, but he was reasonably sure today was one of her good days, and a good day for Mary Keay was a very bad one for everyone else.

He’d give it anywhere between one and four days before she started fading again. Best not to risk it.

The cold followed him all the way up. He pressed his face to the scarf, a little desperately, a little uselessly, because the Lonely wasn’t the sort of cold that wool could fix. But he’d thrown this one around Gerry’s shoulders once, when they were fourteen years old and sneaking out so Martin could look at the Christmas displays at night.

It wasn’t enough to drive off the chill, but for now it was enough to keep it at bay.

He passed Gerry on his way through the shelves—the safer ones, whose books were only books. He kept his eyes to the front. Gerry pretended not to see him. The cold receded the closer they came, until Gerry was close enough to touch and the clouds of mist stopped forming at Martin’s lips entirely.

Martin didn’t reach out to close the distance. But his hands swung gently at his sides with each step, and it was the easiest thing to let it swing wide. His knuckles brushed against Gerry’s hand, passing feather-light over the eyes inked into his skin.

And then he was past, and their brief intersection was over. Martin wrung his hand at his side and moved on.

It was kind of funny, in a twisted way. Gerry only hung around the shop to keep an eye on him, especially after what Mary pulled, just three days ago. If Martin weren’t coming here every day like clockwork, Gerry would spend as little time here as he could without getting dragged back. And Martin, in turn, was only here because he’d decided long ago that he wasn’t leaving without Gerry.

What a pair they made.

That wasn’t quite fair, of course, because no matter what, Gerry _would_ be dragged back. Mary would never let him stay away for long. At least Martin got to go home every night.

In the relative safety and quiet of the study, Martin got to work balancing the shop’s finances. Business, against all odds, continued. It wasn’t very good business, but Mary’s hunger for Leitners hadn’t died any more than she had, and the money had to come from somewhere. Every now and then, some poor soul who hadn’t gotten the memo wandered in to make a sale or purchase.

They left in one piece, at least. Mary seemed more amused by them than anything else. As long as she got her Leitners, she didn’t care about anything else. Martin had given himself three raises since her death, and she hadn’t noticed at all, nor had she noticed the steady downward spiral her finances were currently on.

Why would she? Accounting was too pedestrian to interest her. That was what Martin was for.

She only came into the study once that day, and not for him. Martin shifted his own work out of her way as she tore through files and drawers in a feverish search for something. She barely seemed to see him, which was a welcome change, after the keen interest she’d taken in how he fared against her latest acquisition.

As a child, he’d hated feeling invisible. But when Mary Keay was in the room, it was the only way to survive.

He counted off the seconds until she left, then moved his work back over and continued. He stayed a bit longer than usual, held up by the minor struggle that was his current project. Once he was satisfied with his progress, he gathered his things, tucked the scarf back over his nose, and left. On his way out, he caught a glimpse of his employer, spitting quiet curses as she struggled just to turn the pages of a book. He was gone before she could see him and demand assistance.

Martin smelled cigarette smoke when he opened the front door to his flat, and it was all he could do not to drop everything and dash to the kitchen. As it was, he set his things down gently, closed and locked the door, and joined Gerry at the table.

Gerry glanced up, cigarette in hand, as Martin sat down across from him. His gaze passed over the scarf, the jacket, and the slight tremor in Martin’s frigid hands. Martin folded them together, because if he didn’t do something with them, he’d end up reaching for him on pure muscle memory.

“All right?” Gerry asked, his voice raspy and quiet in the stillness.

“Yeah,” Martin replied. “Much as I can be.”

With a quiet hum, Gerry nodded and took another drag.

Once upon a time, Martin had dreamed of this. Him and Gerry, having the run of the empty flat, without having to hide in his room and creep around late in the night so Mum wouldn’t wake up and find them. Mum hadn’t set foot in here for years, since she’d moved into the care home without a backward glance. It was his flat now, and he could have whatever guests he liked.

But here they were, still mute with fear of discovery. Still hiding.

“I’m sorry,” said Gerry.

“You don’t have to apologize.” It felt mechanic to say it, not because he didn’t mean it, but because Gerry had spent their whole lives apologizing for things that weren’t his fault. “She wanted to test the book, and I was the closest.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“I’m thankful for every moment you aren’t there,” Martin told him.

Gerry almost crushed the cigarette in his grip. “She fed you to the fucking _Lonely_.”

It had taken him so easily, this time. When he was a child he’d had to read the whole story to summon the fog around him. Three days ago, he’d read the title and first sentence under Mary’s eager gaze, and it had taken him.

He’d spent four days stumbling and shivering his way through the mists, struggling to patch the holes in his memory, before he heard the music. Blind instinct had driven him to follow it, until the fog began to clear and he realized that it was music at all, the harsh screaming kind that Gerry loved and he didn’t. And then he’d remembered Gerry, and he’d found himself in what passed for Gerry’s bedroom above Pinhole Books.

He’d found Gerry exhausted and asleep by the old stereo as it played, with a copy of _Moominvalley in November_ open in his lap.

“And you got me out,” Martin replied. “Again.”

Gerry shook his head. “Escaping once is one thing. Second time had to have a price. What did it take?”

Martin bit his lip.

“Martin.” Gerry’s eyes bored into him. “What did it take.”

“I can’t remember my mother’s name.” He spoke it, heard it loud in his own voice, and with that it was real. “Her first name or her maiden name. Except I—I didn’t notice until yesterday, when someone from the care home sent me some scans of her paperwork. Her name was on it, and I couldn’t read it.” His mouth was dry. “And when I spoke with one of the carers on the phone, he said her name a few times, I _know_ he did. But I couldn’t hear it. I even asked him to spell it for me to ‘check if it was accurate’. If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you what any of the letters were.”

Gerry didn’t answer him right away, and he was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if Gerry apologized for it.

“Guess it’s only fair,” Martin went. “Considering what it took the first time.”

“The first time?” Gerry said sharply.

“My name,” said Martin. “Well, my old one, anyway. The Lonely took it when I disappeared. It never gave it back.”

Gerry stared at him, frozen in place.

“And it really—I mean, it took it away completely. Mum forgot it. Everyone at school, too. Easier just to have everyone call me Martin, even if it got me funny looks back then. And Mum… she just never called me anything again.” He paused, slowly uncurling his fists. “So, like I said. It’s only fair.”

“They aren’t fair,” Gerry told him. “They aren’t meant to be. They’re just meant to hurt.”

“Yeah,” Martin said quietly. “I got that much.”

They sat together for a little while longer, separated by Martin’s kitchen table and a haze of cigarette smoke. They didn’t touch. The kettle went off, but Martin didn’t get up to tend to it, because it might end if he left the table.

He kept the windows closed after Gerry finally left, and let the smoke linger.

* * *

(Gerry came to him again, two days later in the dead of night. They sat on the floor with their backs to the bed, like they had when they were children. Gerry didn’t smoke. His hand found Martin’s in the dark. Mary must have been on her way out—he’d never take a risk like this unless she was fading.

“She’s going to kill me,” Gerry said calmly, staring up at the ceiling. “Dunno when. Maybe soon, maybe years from now. She won’t mean to. But it’ll happen.”

Martin clung to his hand and didn’t answer.

“Don’t be upset,” Gerry said with a gentle squeeze. “I’ve known since I was a kid. One of these days she’ll fuck up and get me killed.” His thumb ran along Martin’s knuckles. “Make sure you get out, alright? Make sure she’ll be alone for good.”)

* * *

He went in to work as he always did. Skipped the squeaky steps, slipped through the safest shelves. His employer was erratic this morning. Dropping things, flickering, holes tearing in her memory and her form alike.

There was a new purchase to account for, a bit of inventory, all very quick and simple. He had everything he needed to finish his current project, as well; if he played his cards right, he could go home early today.

A half hour in, he closed the ledger and stood up from the desk.

There were eleven places in the shop that he could check. He found one key in the fourth, another in the seventh, and the third in the eighth.

The first let him him through the little door at the back of the study, hidden behind a set of shelves. The second let him into the safe beyond it. The third opened the heavy lockbox it held.

It was heavy as he lifted it out, and unpleasantly soft. Martin opened it and found what he was looking for sewn into the very back.

He took the necessary supplies from his pockets. A small bottle of lighter fluid, and a lighter. Bracing himself, he took hold of all the necessary pages and ripped them out in one go. He had just enough time to douse them with fluid and open the lighter before she appeared.

She left him a split second just from shock. The silence felt like a gasp as he flicked the wheel and produced a flame.

She tried to stop him, of course. He knew she would. And it hurt. It hurt more than anything she’d ever done to him before. But she couldn’t stop him—not like this, not when she was already on her way out. He burned himself twice—once when she nearly wrenched the lighter from his grip, and again when the lighter fluid caught and the flames roared up into his hands.

Her scream was enough to paralyze him with pain. “ **What are you** _ **doing?**_ ”

“What does it _look_ like?” he spat. In an instant he was on the floor, pinned down with her dead hands around his neck, grip iron-tight for a moment before her fingers began to flake away. He pulled free and crawled back to the fire. It was still contained—he’d managed to drop the pages in the lockbox when they went up. But that could change, in a bookshop filled with wood and old paper. She pursued him, clawing at him even as she lost her hands, even as her inked skin split and blackened and peeled away.

It wouldn’t have done her any good. Even if she could kill him, she couldn’t stop this.

“ **What do you want?** ” she asked, uselessly.

He watched her burn, warming his frigid hands in the flames. He thought he’d feel something—triumph, joy, satisfaction. Relief, at the very least. But all he felt was vague revulsion. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “You never did. You never understood why I kept coming back. I’ll bet you never even questioned it.”

“ **Was it m** **y shop** **you were after** **? My books? My** _ **power?**_ ” Even as a ghost she’d managed to look decently human, but now, at long last, she looked like the withered, desiccated corpse she was. “ **Or perhaps… something** **to burn away the fog** **that haunts you** **?** ”

“The only thing I want from you,” said Martin, “is for you to _stay_ dead this time.”

“ **I don’t** _ **understand**_ **,** ” she hissed, consumed by fire and terror and rage.

“You were never going to. Die mad about it.”

When Gerry came back hours later with blood on his clothes and a Leitner clutched in his battered hands, Martin was there to meet him at the door, holding a jar of ashes and a book, open to the empty space that had once held Mary’s pages.

The Leitners fell forgotten to the steps at their feet, and Gerry fell into Martin’s waiting arms.

* * *

Gerry sorted out the shop, in the end. Martin offered to help, but Gerry wouldn’t hear of it, and it wasn’t an argument that Martin was willing to have. So in spite of his misgivings—the last time Gerry had gone to Pinhole Books alone with a spring in his step, he’d found Mary back from the dead and waiting for him— Martin put a phone in his hands and let him do what he needed to do.

Every book in the shop went up in flames, just to be safe. Even the harmless ones had spent years sitting on shelves alongside the Leitners, and Gerry had looked at him like he was insane the one time he suggested selling them or carting them off to a charity shop. And beyond that, there was nothing to sell. Pinhole Books technically hadn’t existed since Mary’s death; there was nothing left for Gerry to inherit but ashes.

Gerry told him that, the last night he came home smelling of smoke and, alarmingly, burnt meat. He’d whispered it with his lips pressed to Martin’s ear, sounding happier than he had since they were children.

* * *

It was funny. He’d prepared for this as well as he could—pressed his shirt and tie, hemmed his business slacks so the cuffs wouldn’t drag and get caught under his heels—but when he sat before his interviewer, he felt every bit as grubby and under-dressed as he had when he first sat down in Mary Keay’s study. He got through the usual questions to the best of his abilities, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the man before him could see right through him.

He wasn’t even lying, technically. But at least on paper, there were holes in his work history that he’d patched over, and at any moment he half-expected his interviewer to tear right through them.

“One last question, Mr. Blackwood,” Elias Bouchard said, after Martin had gotten through another grueling question about his weakest areas. “Why are you here?”

Martin’s mind stalled. “I’m sorry?”

“What drew you to the Magnus Institute?”

“Oh. W-well…” He didn’t have to panic. He was still on safe ground, as long as he didn’t—

“It’s just… coming from Pinhole Books,” Mr. Bouchard went on, and Martin’s heart sank to his stomach. He hadn’t listed its name on his resume, but he should have known they’d double-check. “I’d think you would have had your fill of the strange and esoteric. And if not, the Institute is a bit more… _academic_ than you might be used to.”

Shit, he should have fabricated a master’s degree. He could’ve done that, easily.

“I, uh…”

“Mr. Blackwood,” Bouchard repeated. His pale eyes glinted with amusement. “Why are you here?”

Somewhere deep in his psyche, Martin threw his hands up. He was bombing the interview anyway, and if Bouchard was going to sit there grinning at him while he floundered then he might as well flounder honestly. “It’s like you said,” he replied. “I worked at Pinhole Books for years. Assistant manager. I thought I’d come out of it with enough experience to find another bookshop job, but no one would take me. By the time I wised up and stopped telling people it was Pinhole Books, I guess word had got around. I know this isn’t a bookshop, but your website said you had a library, and if I’m stuck being the creepy book guy, then, well…”

His voice trailed off, and he swallowed down his dismay. He really had been hoping for this one. Gerry hadn’t liked it, and he’d made Martin swear he wouldn’t take a job in the Archives or Artifact Storage, but after this, he’d be back to square one.

“Well, thank you for your honesty,” Bouchard said, pulling Martin out of his thoughts. “It’s a shame about your previous difficulties, but if they led you here, so much the better.”

Martin blinked. “I’m… sorry?”

“I think our library department would benefit from your experience,” Bouchard replied. “It might be a bit pedestrian for you—though, Artifact Storage always has openings, if you’re interested—”

“Pedestrian is good,” Martin broke in, then mentally kicked himself. “I mean, I’d love to work at your library. Thank you.”

“No, Mr. Blackwood,” Elias Bouchard replied with a fixed smile. “Thank _you_.”

The smile followed him after he left, sticking in his head like a bur until he was safe at home, where he could change out of his stuffy dress clothes, take off his binder, and cast all the unpleasantness away.

Gerry’s smile was much nicer to look at, anyway.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked, again. Martin had lost count of how many times.

“I’m sure.”

“I know things about that place—things Mum told me and—”

“I know them, too,” Martin reminded him. “I was in earshot for most of the things she said. Besides, I’ve been told the job I just took was _pedestrian._ ”

“Oh, well, that’s alright then. Your area of expertise, right there.” Gerry rolled his eyes, and Martin laughed.

“I’ll have to get back into the habit of shelving books instead of burning them,” Martin said. “Shouldn’t be too hard, as long as none of them bite.”

Gerry leaned in with a crooked grin. “If they do, just send them my way. I’m all about bad habits.”

Martin still felt a thrill of terror when he kissed him, half expecting someone to sense his growing happiness and storm in to sabotage it again.

It didn’t stop him. Nothing and no one ever would again.


	7. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Brief discussion of cults, cancer mention.

Gerry woke up to a gentle stream of sunlight through the blinds, the smell of soup heating on the stove, and Martin’s quiet footsteps in the living room.

His mother was years dead, and Martin’s was far away in Devon, and still Martin padded silently around the house like a cat. Of course, he could have been keeping quiet so he wouldn’t wake Gerry, but given how deeply Gerry slept these days, he wouldn’t have needed much effort.

Yawning, Gerry turned over to glance at the clock. His twenty-minute nap had stretched to an hour; no wonder he felt so muzzy. As he sat up, he noted the way his hair brushed against his forehead, and ran his fingers through it. It was getting long enough to be noticeable. A bit more, and it’d be properly floppy.

He’d have to shop for hair dye again soon, if this kept up. The good days were trickling back in. Becoming a habit.

Once he was feeling a bit more awake, he made his way out to the living room. Martin was on the couch, already dressed down with his binder off. He startled as Gerry came in, looking up from the book in his lap.

“Hey.” Martin smiled as Gerry joined him. “Sleep alright?”

Martin’s shoulder was always a comfortable place for his head. “Bit too long,” he admitted. “How was work?”

“Slow.” Martin shifted beside him, almost dislodging him with his fidgeting. “Had a few graduate students come in, and that was the most exciting thing that happened today. So, pretty great.” He paused. “I put soup on, are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” Gerry answered, pulling back when Martin kept fidgeting. As he moved, he got a better view of the book in Martin’s hand—a plain composition notebook, with his finger stuck in it to mark his place.

The coffee table, where he’d left a notebook just like it before his nap, stood empty.

“Oh,” said Gerry, and Martin winced.

“I’m sorry.” Martin slipped his finger out of the notebook and gave it back. “I shouldn’t have looked, but I thought it was one of mine, and…”

“It’s alright,” Gerry assured him, taking it. “I think I was gonna show you eventually. Saved me the trouble of working up the nerve, I guess.” Though, even in the face of Martin’s relieved smile, he did have to brace himself for the next question. “Um. What’d you think?”

“Positively ghoulish,” Martin replied. “Simple, but… _evocative_ is the word, I guess. If I’d shown that to you when we were kids, you’d have loved it.”

That startled a laugh out of him. Once in a while, Martin just seemed to know exactly what Gerry needed to hear. “Good. Sort of what I was going for.”

“I liked the drawings, too,” Martin went on, still grinning. “You could make a kid’s book out of that. I hear loads of people are self-publishing these days.”

Martin’s tone was light, but the feeling taking form beneath Gerry’s ribs was anything but. “You, uh. You think so?”

Martin blinked, grin fading to curiosity. “D’you want to?”

He couldn’t answer right away. Instead he placed the notebook back on the coffee table and ran his hand through his hair again, fingertips brushing gingerly against the surgery scarring.

“You know the Lukases?”

Martin scowled, because of course he knew the Lukases. Mum had played host to Lukases from time to time, before her first death. Apparently they were wrapped up with the institute as well.

“A whole family cult, devoted to the Lonely,” Gerry murmured. “Kids getting raised to serve it, and maybe some of them take to it, some of them don’t. Then there’s you, having a brush with it at nine, and me with my… well, everything.”

“I think I get it,” Martin said softly.

“I can burn all the Leitners I want,” said Gerry. “But it doesn’t do them much good, does it? So maybe… maybe this could help? If they just…”

“Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten,” said Martin. Gerry recognized the words—Martin had shown him _Coraline_ back when they were teenagers. He’d read it until the pages were falling out.

“They can’t, though,” he said, with a harsh noise that wasn’t remotely like a laugh. “Not really.”

“Well then.” Martin took the notebook off the coffee table, and put it back in Gerry’s hands. “Someone’s got to tell people what they _can_ do.”

His throat felt tight. He wasn’t going to cry, was he? He could still count the times he’d cried in front of Martin on one hand—once when Martin showed him what was left of Mum’s pages, again when the call came with the diagnosis, and a third time when his last screening came back negative. It wouldn’t really line up if he got weepy over a notebook and a short story as number four.

“I love you,” he said, helplessly.

Martin pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I love you, too. Dinner?”

Gerry took his hand. “Right behind you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to IceEckos12 for the idea of Gerry writing children's stories, and a huge thanks to the mods of this event for setting this up!


End file.
